F 97 
.B15 
Copy 1 



.^. V, No. 4 July, 1920 

Smith College Studies 
in History 



JOHN SPENCER BASSETT 
SIDNEY BRADSHAW FAY 

Editors 



INFLUENCES TOWARD RADICALISM IN 
CONNECTICUT, 1754-1775 



By EDITH ANNA BAILEY 



NORTHAMPTON, MASS. 

Published Quarterly by the 
Department of History and Government of Smith College 

Entered as second class matter December 14, 1915, at the postoffice at Northampton, 
Mass., under the act of August 24, 1912 




SMITH COLLEGE STUDIES IN HISTORY 

JOHN SPENCER BASSETT 
SIDNEY BRADSHAW FAY 

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Vol. V, No. 4 July, 1920 

Smith College Studies 
in History 



JOHN SPENCER BASSETT 
SIDNEY BRADSHAW FAY 

Editors 



INFLUENCES TOWARD RADICALISM IN 
CONNECTICUT, 1754-1775 



By EDITH ANNA BAILEY 



NORTHAMPTON, MASS. 

Published Quarterly by the 
Department of History and Government of Smith College 



VV\0^ 



Fq7 

.Bib 



OQT 8 012a 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I. The Policy of Great Britain Toward the Expan- 
sion OF Connecticut 179 

II. The Susquehannah Company (First Period) 191 

III. The Susquehannah Company (Second Period) 208 

IV. The Controversy Within the Colony 218 

V. The Relation of the Susquehannah Company to 

THE Political Divisions 226 

Bibliography 249 



Influences Toward Radicalism In 
Connecticut, 1754-1775 

CHAPTER I 

The Policy of Great Britain Toward the Expansion of 

Connecticut 

The formerly accepted traditions as to the causes of the 
American Revolution are no longer considered an adequate 
explanation of the spirit of revolt manifested so generally 
throughout the colonies. That a large number of isolated 
commonwealths, having no bond of union but that of a growing 
feeling of opposition to the common mother country, should 
unite in defence of an abstract principle of political justice, 
when only one of the number was suffering under really 
punitive measures, is not a tenable theory. Accordingly a 
search has been made for the underlying economic reasons 
that, added to the political principles that the colonists were 
upholding, gave real motive power to their spirit of opposition. 

The importance of the merchant associations in the develop- 
ment of this feeling of opposition has been pointed out by 
Professor Schlesinger in his work, "The Colonial Merchants 
and the American Revolution." He shows how, each time 
parliamentary acts were passed that resulted in diminishing the 
profits of the merchants, these men formed associations uniting 
the various colonies, so that they could ofifer a unified opposition, 
in this way bringing about the repeal of the acts in disfavor. 
This explains the economic motive of a large and influential 
class in many of the colonies. 

In Connecticut, however, the merchant traders did not form 
a large percentage of the population. This colony had no 
Boston, Newport, or New York. Its very good harbor, New 
London, was used by a comparatively small town. The limited 
extent of this trade was commented upon by IngersoU in a letter 
to the Commissioners of the Admiralty in 1761. "The afore- 



180 Smith College Studies in History 

cove™. K.CH a.srr r ::x: -^iifr rr; 
the co„„ec..~„ "l: :! r '°^^' ^-f °" -^ ^^'•^ ^^ 

the inland districts w„s "'''"' °^ transportation in 

Connecticut t occZd T' !"' "'° ^" "^"^ '™<' '" 

towns, fie niaioritroTtit pet^ i T^e ^1"° ^^^'^^ 

entirely isolated frnr,. , ^ ^^''^ almost 

r.: -£ SLS;rr,r -"1' '"~=t 

> ±nc Mississippi Valley in British Politir^ " T\/r 
companies were formed with th^ nio f Politics. Many 

land, deeded bv the rrn , ^ °^ ^'"^"- ^^'"^^ tracts of 

, ueeaed by the crown under some form of quit rent Tl. 
lands were again to be sold in lots according / '' 

The policy of the Briti.h h ^^^«^^^"§^ to various methods. 

of th'e M^ssissip^ ;Ty waTf" "'^^'^"^ ^'^^ ^^^^^^^ 
terminated in the pas aTe of th A" k '"'^''"^- '' ^^"^ 
object of which was to exclud ah'f ^l" ^^^' ^" ""^^^^^^ 

Ohio and the Missis^prRtr Z^^^^^^^^ ^^^--" ^^^ 

far distant had not Zy ^^^l^Z:Tt ^^ 
Connecticut. In Phvne;,^ T ...v.o /, • '^"^^^^ed the people of 

~:a,s dra™ ^^ atTerL^lC'fre^rr il 

Hist. Soc. Colls. accessible only m proof and manuscript.) Conn 

'' Thomas Fitch to T ^,r,-I<^ r ■ ■ 

Sept ;^, 762, P,,w,v'«°„^Sf<,/?A"?I-r:5'- Tra* and Plantations. 



Radicalism in Connecticut, 1754-1775 181 

included in Professor Alvord's discussion), we find their one 
exception to this rule. Thus Connecticut, whether through Ian 
speculation or through pioneers, had comparatively little to d 
with the Mississippi Valley emigration. 

Though that far distant westward movement did not appeal 
to the people of Connecticut, they, nevertheless, had their land 
schemes. Their greatest land venture, that of the Susquehannah 
Company,^ was most opposed by the British government during 
its first period of activity. This was before the time of the 
various western land schemes of which the "Mississippi Valle 
in British Politics" treats. This first period of activity~uf the 
Susquehannah Company the home government brought to a 
halt. A change in the personnel of the Connecticut administra- 
tion, however, was the signal for starting the scheme again. 

What this paper attempts to show is that the radical position 
taken by Connecticut in the Revolutionary movement, was mainly 
the result of British opposition to her efforts at expansion. There 
was not only the direct opposition of the home government, 
but an indirect opposition as well, for the British sympathizers 
within the colony persistently seconded the efforts of the home 
government. If it be true that this movement of expansion so 
greatly influenced the colony in its Revolutionary attitude, then 
there are three questions to be answered in regard to it before 
determining the effects of that opposition. The following are 
the three questions. What was the reason for the movement? 
If the Connecticut pioneers did not, at this time, seek the old 
Northwest, whither did their westward movement lead them? 
And, why did Great Britain oppose their emigration? 

The reason for the movement of expansion was an economic 
one. The wilderness within Connecticut was entirely taken up, 
the line of frontier having advanced beyond the boundaries of 
the colony. The whole people, moreover, excepting only the 
small percentage that lived by commerce, was supported by the 
land. Although the professions and the trades were well repre- 




^ In the name "Susquehannah Company" the spelHng is that used by 
the members of the company. 



182 Smith College Studies in History 

sented, each man was, in addition, a farmer; often, perhaps even 
generally, the money received from the practice of the profession 
or trade was but an addendum to the real living, which was the 
profit of the farm.^ 

Dependent upon the land for a living as these people were, 
they were, nevertheless, very poor farmers. Because land had 
been exceedingly cheap, and was still cheap farther on, for those 
who had the spirit of adventure, they were not forced, in the 
effort to maintain existence, to adopt the more modern methods 
that had, in Europe, largely superseded the antiquated ones." 
The majority of the people in the colony, who lived in the inland 
districts, produced on the farm practically all of the necessities 
of life. As the population increased, rather than improve the 
state of agriculture, the people moved on to where the virgin 
soil, cultivated by even the most antiquated methods, could easily 
support them. 

The pioneers went mainly from those districts having poor 
transportation facilities. The counties and towns on the rivers 
and coast, where means of transportation to a market had proved 
a stimulus to production, and which, therefore, could maintain 
a larger population, lost far less by emigration than did the 
inland country.^ It was, in consequence, the more markedly 
rural people, those who already held agrarian principles, who 
were the ones to go forward to found colonies of Connecticut, 
where their "towns were even more independent than their 
prototypes."^ 



" Bidwell, p. 252. 

' "The Philadelphia Society for promoting Agriculture have done them- 
selves the honour to elect you an honorary member . . . 

The society wish to excite a spirit of inquiry & improvement in an 
art of such important and universal utility, and in which we fall so much 
behind the nations of Europe. One obvious cause of our inattention has 
been the vast quantity of nciu land, ready to receive a transfer of culture 
from old, worn-out field. But in the long-settled parts of these states 
there is no more room for such transfers, and modern European improve- 
ments demand our attention." Timothy Pickering to Oliver Wolcott, Sen., 
June 9, 1875, Oliver Wolcott Sen. MSS. IV : No. 54. 

" Bidwell, p. 387. 

" Johnston, Connecticut a Study of Commonwealth Democracy, p. 272. 



Radicalism in Connecticutt, 1754-1775 183 

Thus the demand of a rural people for more land drove them 
forward. Very early overflows had carried them into Long 
Island and the country about Newark. Later came the ill-starred 
scheme of Phyneas Lyman and his "Military Adventurers," in 
promoting which the neglected hero of the Battle of Lake 
George^^ spent eleven years in London. He returned in 1774 
when, with his family and "many hundred families from Con- 
necticut and Massachusetts," he went to West Florida, there to 
find after all his years of effort that all he had gained for himself 
and his provincials was squatter rights.^ ^ 

Before the emigration of the Military Adventurers there had 
been the emigration into the "equivalent lands," the beginning 
of the northward movement, one of the three large pre-Revolu- 
tionary emigrations of Connecticut. This was a movement up the 
Connecticut into lands ceded by Massachusetts. Partly, perhaps, 
because this was the most natural direction for the expansion to 
take, this movement was the most powerful of the emigrations 
from Connecticut. The origin of "equivalent lands" was as fol- 
lows. Early in the eighteenth century there had arisen a dispute 
between Massachusetts and Connecticut over their boundary 
line. Circumstances, including fear of losing her charter, 
"combined to urge the Colony of Connecticut to make peace 
direct with Massachusetts, and avoid the appeal" to the crown, 
arrangements for which both colonies had begun. ^^ "gy ^^g 
agreement Massachusetts was as before to have jurisdiction over 
her old border towns, though they fell to the south of the new 
Colony line. For this privilege of jurisdiction Massachusetts 
agreed to compensate Connecticut. For as much territory as 
Massachusetts governed south of the true line, she agreed to 
give the same amount of territory to Connecticut in unimproved 
lands in Western Massachusetts."^^ These lands were called 
the equivalent lands. 

Some of these lands, about sixty thousand acres, instead of 



Ibid., p. 260. 
Alvord, II, p. 176. 

' Bowen, Boundary Disputes of Connecticut, p. 58. 
■ Ibid., p. 58. 



184 Smith College Studies in History 

being in Massachusetts, proved, later, to be in New Hampshire, 
or rather, within what New Hampshire claimed as her western 
lands. New York also claimed this district under the grant of 
the Duke of York. In spite of these claims Governor Went- 
worth of New Hampshire "proceeded to make further grants 
of land in the disputed territory, very many of them to Connec- 
ticut settlers,"^'* and also to settlers from New Hampshire, 
Massachusetts and Rliode Island. Soon after Lord Hillsborough 
was appointed President of the Board of Trade, he proceeded 
toward settling the matter. 

He it was who when at the Board of Trade possessed with 
the worst Prejs. agt. G. W. [Governor Wentworth] & his Grants, had 
without Notice to the Govr. or Prop^s. Estabd. the Line at Conn*. River & 
has been the occasion of all y^. Injuries & vexation.is 

Thus wrote William Samuel Johnson, who was acting in London 
as agent of the New Hampshire proprietors. Governor Colden 
of New York having received this decision of the Board pro- 
ceeded to warn off all settlers holding under the grants of 
Governor Wentworth. Accordingly, when Sir Henry Moore 
became governor of New York he found that district of his 
province in great confusion. Uncertain as to what lands were 
legally unowned and so capable of being granted to the petitioners 
for lands, he wrote the Board of Trade for advice. 

In a letter which I received from G^ Wentworth, he very strongly 
recommends the Settlers, who are established there ; and concludes with 
saying : "the Grantees have already lost two Years Time, by an ill timed 
Procedure of G^ Colden, by which some thousand Settlers have been driven 
off, and others deterred from making improvements." ... I took every 
step in my power to quiet the Minds of the People there, as I understood, 
that a great uneasiness had prevailed among them, and made a Declaration 
to the principal Settlers there, which I desired might be made public, that 
every Person, who had really and bona fide settled and cultivated the Lands 
agreeable to the conditions of the Grants they had received, should be 
quieted in their Possessions ; and no Grants would be issued by me to their 
Prejudice.16 



"Johnston, p. 272. 

"W. S. Johnson to Agar Tomlinson, March 17, 1768, Johnson MSS. 
(loose). 

'"Sir Henry Moore to Board of Trade and Plantations, March 20, 1766, 
Johnson MSS. (loose). 



Radicalism in Connecticut, 1754-1775 185 

The patentees who had been frightened off from setthng by 
Governor Colden's proclamation were not satisfied with this. 
With Lord Hillsborough as Secretary for the Colonies, however, 
they had little hope of any further consideration.^^ In the 
regulation that the Board of Trade finally drew up in regard 
to the lands, those patentees had received no more favor than 
this: they had "the Preference to any other upon applicaf^. to 
the Gov"", of N York for New Gr*®. upon the usual Terms of 
Granting Lands in that Prov^."^^ 

In these negotiations the proprietors or patentees felt that 
they had not received justice. Many of them had been soldiers 
in the late French and Indian War and these felt that Great 
Britain had been lacking in gratitude, withholding from them 
the lands that their efforts had made safe for occupation. More- 
over, the system of local government that the settlers had taken 
with them from New England differed from that administered in 
the province of New York. The result was continued friction. 

It was in the midst of this unsettled state, when law could 
not be administered according to any legal system, that in 1775 
Ethan Allen wrote back to Oliver Wolcott, Sen., who had been 
sheriff of the country where Allen had lived in Connecticut, for 
advice as to some mode of government. 

The Confused and Difficult Circumstances of the New Hampshire 
Settlements urge me to Request Your Honours Sentiments Respecting the 
Expediency and Polocy of a Covenant Compact with Certain Resolutions 
&c . . .19 

Finally Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys succeeded 
in winning the independence of their territory, which was 
formed into a state, in 1777, under the name of New Con- 
necticut. Later this was changed to Vermont.-'^ Thus the 
movement of emigration up the river from Connecticut resulted 
in the formation of a new commonwealth. 

It was the economic motive, primarily, that drove the people 
of Connecticut to emigrate ; but there was also a psychological 

" W. S. Johnson to Tomlinson, May 6, 1769, Johnson MSS. (loose). 
^* W. S. Johnson to Tomlinson, June 4, 1771, Johnson MSS. (loose). 
"Ethan Allen to Oliver Wolcott, Sen., March 1, 1775, 01. Wolcott 
Sen. MSS. I : No. 1. 
'" Johnston, p. 273. 



186 Smith College Studies in History 

reason why they sought homes farther on. This is to be found 
in the. particular characteristic of the Connecticut pioneer people 
that was largely instrumental in causing the clash between them 
and the other peoples among whom they settled, namely, their 
intense feeling of independence. This independence was also 
one of the causes of the opposition of the home government to 
the Connecticut people in their emigrations. William Samuel 
Johnson described this characteristic in a letter to Richard 
Jackson. Johnson had experienced great difficulty in finding a 
suitable tenant to work Jackson's farm and he told him the 
reason for his difficulty. 

The truth is, as he suggests, that Land is so cheap in the 
Northern Parts of the Country that none but the most worthless of 
Mankind will stay below & labour upon the Lands of others. Our people 
have also rediculous Idea that there is a certain Inferiority in being a 
Tenant unworthy the dignity of a freeborn Englishman. It absolutely 
piques their Pride & very few or none of any spirit will submit to be less 
than freeholders — I have no doubt both from what I have heard you often 
remark, & from my own observations that it w^. very often be much more 
benefit, to Tenants than to emigrate as they do continually & attempt to 
set up for themselves. But they have strong prejudices agt. it, & and are 
perhaps of so unconquerable a spirit of adventure & independence that they 
choose rather to put their fortunes in the wide wilderness exposed to all 
the hardships that unavoidably attend new settlements, or even stay here 
& cultivate in Poverty twenty poor acres of their ozvn than grow rich 
upon Farms which they might have upon very easy terms, belonging to 
others. 21 

Then, too, the Connecticut people held their lands in fee simple 
and when they moved onward they did not change their form 
of land tenure. The province of New York, however, was 
divided into large estates and those who were the actual farmers 
were able only to lease the land. Johnston, in his "Connecticut, 
a Study of Commonwealth Democracy," says in referring to 
the towns in the district that had been newly made a part of 
the New York province, that "their 'independence and unbridled 
democracy' formed one of the arguments by which New York 
obtained a judgment in her favor from the home govern- 
ment."22 



=''W. S. Johnson to Richard Jackson, May 30, 1772, Johnson MSS. 
(loose). 

^Johnston, p. 272. 



Radicalism in Connecticutt, 1754-1775 187 

A somewhat different aspect of the matter, and one that 
very materially colored the attitude of the members of the 
Board of Trade and Plantations, is shown in William Samuel 
Johnson's statement of Lord Hillsborough's "prejudice" against 
the New Hampshire grantees. Because of this prejudice, as 
Johnson wrote Agar Tomlinson, one of the grantees, they need 
hold no hope of a favorable consideration while Lord Hills- 
borough remained Secretary for the Colonies. 

He will own indeed that the Bona fide Purchasers ought not to be 
Prejudiced but will hardly believe that there were many such, the whole 
affair having been Conceived by him to have been a land-Jobbing Scheme, 
Iniquitous Collusion between the late Gov Wentworth and the Principal 
Patentees to raise Money upon the People without any real fair Intention 
of settling the Country — It is a very great Pity that any of the Prop^s. 
were discouraged by Gov. Coldens ProC". from settling, had they fulfilled 
the Terms of their Grants & been found in Actual Possess"., they would 
have been much safer, & I fancy would never have been removed, the 
injustice of it would have been too striking.23 

Lord Hillsborough was not altogether wrong in thinking the 
affair a land-jobbing scheme. Speculation in land had been 
carried on for many years in the colonies. As wealth had grown 
the accumulating capital had found no outlet except in trade 
and commerce, since manufacturing was forbidden in the 
colonies. The result was that it was turned toward the buying 
of land. The method was for the colonial governments to sell 
townships to a few patentees who, in turn, became proprietors 
by reselling it in smaller lots to those who would be the actual 
settlers.-'* Following this method Governor Wentworth had the 
lands extending westward as far as the western boundary of 
Massachusetts surveyed and divided into forty-eight townships. 
In each of these townships lots were set aside for public 
purposes, such as for the benefit of the Society for the Propa- 
gation of the Gospel, and, also in each, five hundred acres were 
reserved for him.^^ 

In the last sentence of the foregoing letter Johnson expressed 
the key-note of the Connecticut method of carrying on expan- 



'W. S. Johnson to Tomlinson, May 6, 1769, Johnson MSS. (loose). 
'Mathews, Expansion of Nczv England, p. 91. 
■Ibid., pp. Ill, 112. 



188 Smith College Studies in History 

sion — ^the principle that possession is nine points of the law. 
Perhaps this trust in the right of possession was but the natural 
outgrowth of the disputed title that Connecticut held to a 
portion of her own soil. At this time the colony was divided 
into six counties ; the disputed portion included two-thirds of 
two of these counties, the northern two-thirds of New London 
and the southern two-thirds of Windham.^^ The people, there- 
fore, who lived in this large district of the colony held their 
lands without a clear title ; this uncertainty, moreover, lasted 
for seventy years. In a later chapter the attitude toward 
emigration held by the people of this section is contrasted with 
that held by people living in other parts of the colony. The 
result seems to show that the long habit of resting their claim 
on the right of possession so influenced the judgment of this 
group of Connecticut people that they were ready to strike out 
into the wilderness, to take possession of new homesteads and 
let the matter of title be put aside for later consideration. It 
must be pointed out further, that not only were the individual 
titles kept in uncertainty but the title of the colony under which 
they claimed as well. Thus, composed as it was of individual 
judgments as to the necessity of having a clear title of owner- 
ship, the judgment of the whole "Company of the Colony of 
Connecticut" may have been affected by this matter of life-long 
existence under a disputed title. 

The history of this disputed title, called the Mason or the 
Mohegan claim is briefly as follows. After the conquest of 
the Pequots, Uncas, a sachem who had fought on the side of 
the colonists, laid claim to the whole of the Indian territory. 
In 1640 the colony bought this land from him, leaving to him 
and the large group of Mohegans and conquered Pequots whom 
he represented, planting grounds and various communal rights 
in the land. In 1660 the colony commissioned Major John Mason, 
deputy-governor, to purchase the planting grounds also. These, 
together with the rights of jurisdiction, he acquired and sur- 
rendered to the colony. Although the Indians had thus given 

'" Bowen, p. 25. 



Radicalism in Connecticut, 1754-1775 189 

up all title to the land, they were still permitted to live on it 
as before, with Mason as manager of their planting grounds. 
But the form of the surrender to the colony of Mason's title 
had been faulty in some technicality. Thus it was possible for 
his heirs to claim that the transfer had been illegal. To 
strengthen their claim they tried to stir up dissatisfaction among 
the Indians. The colony attempted to quiet the Indians by a 
second purchase.^'^ Finally the Mason heirs sought support 
from England and in 1705 the Privy Council directed that a 
commission should be granted to Dudley, instructing him to 
erect a court in Connecticut to do justice to the Indians.-^ 
This court decided ex parte in favor of the Masons. After 
this adverse decision the colony sent a statement of the case 
to its agent in London, Sir Henry Ashurst. On behalf of the 
colony he petitioned her majesty, Queen Anne, that the case 
might be tried before her. Accordingly she appointed a com- 
mission, of review, which in 1743 decided in favor of the colony. 
The case was then appealed to the crown by the Mason heirs. 
A final decision was not given until 1773 when the Privy Council 
reaffirmed the decision of the commissioners of review. ^^ 

In this controversy, "money was advanced by the lords and 
noblemen to assist him [Mason] in the prosecution of his 
suit."^*^ This was because of the sympathy that the members 
of the Privy Council had for the Indians, whose cause they 
felt the Masons were upholding. This brings out the third 
reason for the opposition of the British government to the 
expansion of Connecticut, namely, the desire to deal justly with 
the original inhabitants of the land. When there was a question 
of the Connecticut pioneers taking land that the Indians claimed 
as still their own, fear of unfair treatment of the Indians caused 
the government to object to the emigration of the people of the 



" Trumbull, History of Connecticut, I, pp. 89, 196, 340 ff. 

^^ Kimball, Public Life of Joseph Dudley, p. 146. The situation was 
complicated by the feeling of the colonists that Dudley was using this 
occasion as a means toward the annulling of the Connecticut charter. 

'■^ Dexter, Nezv Haven Hist. Soc. Colls., note IX, p. 422. 

'^ Trumbull, A Plea in Vindication of the Connecticut Title to the Con- 
tested Land, p. 92. 



190 Smith College Studies in History 

colony. When these pioneers, with their independence and 
insistence upon holding their lands in fee simple, moved among 
those who held their farms under lease from the proprietors, as 
they did in New York and Pennsylvania, thus causing trouble 
within the provinces, then the home government, as we have 
seen above, sided with the proprietors. The government objected 
to Connecticut land companies as speculation schemes, but the 
reason for this is too much a question of British politics to be 
considered here. It was certainly often the case that when there 
was a question of rivalry between schemes of the people of Con- 
necticut and the people of other colonies, those others received 
the preference. The matter of justice to the Indian, however, 
formed the most important reason for the opposition by the 
home government to the expansion of Connecticut. 

These, then, were the reasons for the opposition. The 
reasons for the expansion itself were both economic and 
psychological. In this chapter the great movement northward 
has been treated. The following chapter will sketch the early 
history of a Connecticut emigration which became so formidable, 
because of the hostility that it engendered, that there was, at 
one time, danger that it "might blow up a civil war."^^ This 
was the emigration of members of the Susquehannah Company. 
The causes were the same as those of the Vermont emigration ; 
the opposition was of the same nature, but new circumstances 
entered in so that the result was not the same. Those who 
emigrated under the auspices of the Susquehannah Company did 
not form a new commonwealth. 



''Pelatiah Webster to W. S. Johnson, March 13, 1786, Johnson MSS. 
IV : No. 37. 



Radicalism in Connecticut, 1754-1775 191 

• CHAPTER II 
The Susquehannah Company 

First Period 

The reasons for the opposition of Great Britain to the 
expansionist movements of Connecticut have been shown. The 
expression of that opposition and its reaction upon the attitude 
of the colonists toward the home government came out most 
clearly in the history of the Susquehannah Company. Two 
periods only of the company's activity will be treated here. The 
first, from the memorial presented to the Connecticut assembly 
during its session in May, 1753, by a group of people mainly 
from Windham County, to the massacre of the settlers at Mill 
Creek, October 15, 1763, shows the opposition of the home 
government and closes with the total cessation of the activity 
of the company. The second period from the meeting of the 
Susquehannah Company, Dec. 28, 1768, when it was decided 
to retake possession of the Wyoming lands and settle thereon, 
to the adjourned session of the Connecticut assembly, January, 
1774, shows the reaction of the colonists to that opposition and 
closes with the assertion by the assembly of the right of Con- 
necticut to the disputed lands and the incorporation of them 
into the town of Westmoreland. The opposition of the British 
sympathizers began as soon as there was any question as to the 
approval of the home government to the operations of the 
company and culminated after the incorporation of Westmore- 
land, in that decisive year when a man's attitude toward the 
home government decided his position as Tory or patriot. 

In giving the early history of the Susquehannah Company, 
the object is not to retell the story of the struggles of the pioneers 
sent out by that company, nor is it to offer an opinion in regard 
to the legality of the various claims. These pages attempt only 
to show the political significance of the affairs of the company. 
The first period begins with the growth of the corporation and 
the hopeful activity of the company. 



192 Smith College Studies in History 

The first public action of the group that later was organized 
into the Susquehannah Company, was the presentation of a 
memorial to the assembly during its May session in 1753. The 
subscribers of this memorial were "inhabitants of Farmington, 
Windham, Canterbury, Plainfield, Yoluntown, and in several 
other towns all of Connecticut Colony."^ Farmington is a 
town on the western side of the river; all of the other towns 
were in Windham County- on the east side of the river. Four 
of the memorialists— Capt. Jabez Fitch, Capt. Isaac Gallup, 
Ezekiel Peirce and Joseph Parke were members of the Assembly 
at that time."^ From a comparison of a partial list* of civil 
officers of 1759 with Governor Fitch's list of civil officers of 
1762,^ we may judge that the four memorialists were represen- 
tatives in the Lower House. In the government of Connecticut 
the Lower House served, in a way, as a preparatory school for 
the Upper House or Council. Two men were elected to the 
Lower House semi-annually from each town. After years of 
service there, if they had become prominent enough, they might 
be elected to the Council. Tlie twelve councilmen, elected at 
large, were, in the main, members of a comparatively few 
prominent families, descendants of the early settlers.^ Although 
they were elected annually, once in office, they usually remained 
for life. The governors had usually served as councilmen. 
Thus it may be inferred that the group was not of this closed 
body of the aristocracy, since their leaders were only four repre- 
sentatives. 

The memorial presented to the assembly''' tells of the land 
lying along the Susquehannah River, which the subscribers 
suppose is within the charter of the colony of Connecticut and 
upon which there are still no English inhabitants. The one 

^ Harvey, History of Wilkcs-Barre, I, p. 248. 

nbid., I, p. 246. 

nUd., I. p. 250. 

* Chauncey Whittelsey to Ezra Stiles, Sept. 25, 1759, Extracts from 
the Itineraries . . . , p. 581. 

^ Governor Fitch to the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, 
Sept. 7, 1762, Colonial Records of Conn., XI, p. 631. 

® Bates, Wolcott Papers, Conn. Hist. Soc. Colls., XVI, p. xxv. 

' Harvey, I, p. 248. 



Radicalism in Connecticutt, 1754-1775 193 

hundred subscribers wish to go there to live ; because of this 
desire they ask permission of the assembly to buy the land from 
the Indians. They continue : 

JVlicrcupon zve humbly pray, that the Honorable Assembly would grant 
to us a quit-claim of the aforesaid tract, or so much as the Honorable 
Assembly shall think best, upon such terms as your Honors shall think 
reasonable, and in such a way and manner that in case zve cannot hold 
and enjoy the same by virtue of said grant, yet, notwithstanding the same 
not to be hurtful or prejudical on any account to this Colony; and in case 
we can hold and possess said land, then to be always under the government 
and subject to the laws and discipline of this Colony— and provided that 
we, the said subscribers, shall within three years next coming lay the 
same out in equal proportion, and settle upon the same, as also purchase 
the right of natives as aforesaid ... § 

The request was made by reason of the fact that in Connecticut, 
since the act of May, 1717,^ the mere purchase of land from the 
Indians did not give a clear title to it ; "allowance or approba- 
tion" of the assembly had to be gained. 

In the May session of the assembly in 1755 a second memorial 
upon the same subject'^ was presented. This petition was not 
from individuals but from the executive committee of the Sus- 
quehannah Company, for in the meantime an organized company 
had bought the desired land from the Six Nations through their 
representatives, eighteen of their chief sachems. ^^ The purchase 
was made while the Indians were gathered at the Albany 
Congress in July, 1754.^- It comprised a section of land about 
seventy miles^^ in length, north and south, two degrees longitude 
in width, and situated on both sides of the Susquehanna River. 
The purchase price was £2,000. 

At this same time the Pennsylvania Proprietors purchased 
a much larger tract, which was vastly larger than the Indians 
realized or wished to sell, since the buyers dealt in terms of 



* The published records of Connecticut do not state what disposition was 
made of the memorial. Harvey, I, p. 250. 

Ubid., I. p. 247. 

'" Ibid., I. p. 307. 

^'Ibid., I. p. 271 f¥. 

^Professor Mathews, in The Expansion of Nezv England, p. 119, states 
that the purchase was made in 1755 instead of 1754. 

'^ Professor Mathews, p. 120, states that the tract was twenty miles 
from north to south, instead of seventy miles. 



194 Smith College Studies in History 

latitude and longitude. This helped to bring on trouble for both 
Pennsylvania and the Susquehannah Company, as shown later. 

By the time of the presentation of the second memorial in 
May, 1775, the small group of one hundred, drawn mostly from 
Windham County, had increased to 850, including, moreover, 
many from outside the colony. The first memorialists had been 
desirous of settling the land of Wyoming on the Susquehanna. 
As their plans matured, more capital had been required; accord- 
ingly they had enlarged their group and organized it into a 
company. Thus their pioneer scheme had attracted many who 
had no idea whatever of moving out into the wilderness but who 
welcomed an opportunity for speculation. Consequentl)^, those 
who belonged to the company at the time when the land was 
purchased (1754) and who, therefore, signed the deed, included 
within their approximate 750^^ many whose names were well 
known and highly respected in the colony. Among them were 
three councilmen, Hon. Hezekiah Huntington, Daniel Edwards, 
Esq., and Eliphalet Dyer, Esq. ; two former councilmen, Roger 
Wolcott, Jr., Esq. and Phyneas Lyman, Esq. ; George Wyllys, 
Esq., Secretary of the colony; seventeen others with the title 
"esquire," then a mark of higher station ; and many members 
of the Lower House, including Oliver Wolcott, later governor 
of the colony, and Doctor Benjamin Gale, prominent later in 
the opposition. The name of Ezra Stiles, who was then preach- 
ing in Rhode Island, later president of Yale College, also appears 
on this list. During the months between the purchase of the 
land and the presentation of the second memorial, the company 
was increased by about one hundred members. Probably Joseph 
Chew,^^ Jared IngersoU,^^ and Colonel Jonathan Trumbull, ^'^ 
later governor of the colony, joined about this time. 

"Harvey, I. p. 271 ff. List of signers. 

^^Chew was appointed on a committee July 27, 1762; Harvey, I. p. 402. 

^" "Now God knows I only came into it out of a mere Banter, supposing 
it was to cost me about five or six Dollars only, & tho I found the Expense 
much more I did not trouble my self, as you and many others who I new 
to be good Company were engaged & I expected we should have some 
Little Deversion for our Money." Chew to Ingersoll, June 17, 1763, New 
Haven Hist. Soc. Colls., IX, p. 282. 

"Trumbull was appointed on a committee Feb. 25, 1761; Harvey, I, 
p. 293. 



Radicalism in Connecticut, 1754-1775 195 

Another company, , called the Connecticut Delaware Company, 
in which many of the members of the Susquehannah Company 
had also bought shares, was formed after the Susquehannah 
Company was organized and its plans well under way. The 
Delaware Company bought, with less regard for its method of 
procedure than the earlier company had shown, a large tract of 
land extending from the eastern line of the Susquehannah lands, 
as its western border, to the Delaware River. Although this 
company sent forth emigrations also, its later history is little 
known. Those who opposed the Susquehannah Company's 
operations treated that company as if it were affiliated with the 
Delaware Company. Many and influential as the members of 
these two companies undoubtedly were, their opponents greatly 
exaggerated their strength and influence. 

By the time of their second memorial the Susquehannah 
Company had a more definite purpose than that of the original 
petitioners. What was now desired of the assembly was "their 
continuance and approbation of the erecting a new colony at 
Susquehanna, and of our application to his Majesty for that 
purpose . . . "^^ At the meeting of the company at that 
time they voted further. 

That a seasonable address be made to His Majesty for royal grant and 
confirmation of a sufficient tract of land to said Company, and his appro- 
bation and encouragement of our undertaking ; and to incorporate the said 
Company with a Charter of privileges, immunities and government in 
form as near as may be of the Constitution of said Colony of Connecticut. 
That in order thereto a proper address from the chiefs of the Six Nations 
of Indians to his Majesty be procured . . . 19 

There is a note appended to the minutes, in the handwriting of 

Samuel Gray, Clerk, which says that the affidavit was secured 

and sent to England. The affidavit closes with the following 

sentence :-° 

Neither do the deponents imagine any difficulty would have arisen about 
the sale and settlement had it not been stirred up among the Indians by 
the white people — principally among whom are the Governor of Penn. «& 
Sir William Johnson.2i 

'' Harvey, I, p. 306. 
''Ibid., I, pp. 306, 307. 
" Ibid., I, p. 307. 



196 Smith College Studies in History 

The affidavit seems to show that the activity of the Susque- 
hannah Company had caused difficulties, either directly or 
indirectly, among the Indians. The correspondence carried on 
between two Pennsylvania governors and two Connecticut 
governors, and between one of the latter and General Amherst, 
Sir William Johnson, and members of the home government, 
bears out such a supposition. In their correspondence the 
opposition of the home government to the activity of the Sus- 
quehannah Company is shown. 

The reason for the first letters of protest on the part of 
Governor Hamilton of Pennsylvania was the presence of the 
"Journeying Committee"^^ in his province. This committee, 
appointed when the Susquehannah Company was organized, had 
for its duties 

. . . to repair to said place at Susquehanna, in order to view said 
tract of land and to purchase^ of the nations there inhabiting their title 
and interest to said tract of land ; and to survey, lay out, and receive proper 
deeds or conveyances of said land . . . 2S 

The committee added to their stated duties that of enrolling new 
members along their way. Naturally such public business could 
not be carried on without its becoming generally known. Gov- 
ernor Hamilton learned of it through white people living near 
Wyoming. 

The "Journeying Committee" started for Wyoming about 
the middle of October, 1753.2^ On March 4, 1754, Governor 
Hamilton sent copies of the same letter to Governor Wolcott aad 
Deputy Governor Fitch. This letter, which was delivered b} 
John Armstrong, Esq., a member of the Pennsylvania Provincial 
Assembly, is dignified, courteous, and from the standpoint of 
the author, at least, generous. It tells^^ of the early rumors 
that the governor had heard, and of later partially contradictory 



"^ Ibid., I, p. 291 reprinted from Col. Franklin in Plain Truth, May 
25, 1801. 

''Ibid., I, p. 254. 

''Ibid., I, pp. 251, 252. 

''Ibid., I, p. 254. 

-'Hamilton, to R. Wolcott, March 4, 1754, Johnson MSS. IV: No. 1. 



Radicalism in Connecticutt, 1754-1775 197 

ones, that there are Connecticut people who plan, "without the 
Countenance or Knowledge of the Government," to come to 
Pennsylvania in the coming spring and settle there under their 
Indian title ; moreover, they do not expect "to pay any Regard 
to the Rights of our Proprietaries, or apply to this Government 
for their Leave and Authority." Although he can with difficulty 
credit these rumors, he feels it his duty to inform the Connec- 
ticut governor of them and entreat him to do his utmost to 
prevent the people from coming. If the people should come, in 
spite of the fact that the French have already invaded the province 
and there is danger of war, and should "forcibly take Possession 
of our Lands," then all would be justified in thinking them 
enemies who desire to bring on civil war. He urges further 
the danger from the displeasure of the Indians if settlers should 
come upon their favorite hunting grounds. He ofifers, if the 
Connecticut people wish to settle in the unappropriated lands 
in the western part of the province, or in Virginia, to use his 
influence in their behalf and to ofifer every encouragement. 

The two men wrote their answers to this request on the same 
day, but their letters show an interesting contrast. That of the 
deputy governor is short and businesslike ; it promises that the 
author will use his influence as desired ; 

I shall in all proper ways use my Interest to prevent everything that 
may tend any way to prejudice the general good of these Governments, 
and" am inclined to believe this Wild Scheme of our People, will come to 
nothing, tho' I can't certainly say, I heartily desire a good Harmony 
may subsist between your Government and others, and this in par- 
ticular ... 20 

That of the governor, on the other hand, is rambling and 

indefinite ; moreover, there is no word of his using his influence 

to cause the people to change their plans ; 

. . . some of our Inhabitants hearing of this Land at Susquehannah 
and that it was North of Grant made to Mr. Pen and that to Virginia 
and upon a designe of making a purchase of the Indians and hope to obtain 
a Grant of it from the Crown, this appearing to be a designe to promote 
His Majesty's Interest and render the Countrey more Defencible, we were 
all well wishers to it. 



'"Thomas Fitch to James Hamilton, March 13, 1754, Fitch Papers, II 
Appendix, in MS. 



198 Smith College Studies in History 

But Mr. Armstrong informes me that this Land is Intirely within 
Mr. Pens Grant, if so I dont supose our people had any purpose to 
quarrell with Pennsilvania. Indeed I dont know the mind of every Private 
man but I never heard our leading men express themselves so inclined. 

Your proposal to move Mr. Pen & the Government of Virginia to 
promote new settlements in the easiest manner, if elected may turn the 
eyes of our people that way and it is but reasonable that Lands 
so far from the sea and on the frontiers should have the set- 
tlers on it encouraged in my opinion you may serve your King, 
your Proprietaries and your Country in promoting this Scheme and this 
may probably draw many of our people to settle in those parts which I 
hope will prove orderly and Industrious inhabitants and being used to war 
may be of good service on that Acct. 

This seems to be a time if ever to promote as good a work and if 
omitted may prove our lost opportunity. 

We in New England from our beginning have often had hard service 
with the French and Indians and Hitherto made our part Good with them : 
It is probable the war will extend in the Western parts and you must 
come to a clash with the French which shall be the Masters of the Country 
in Which Case every man will be servicable according to his strength of 
body & Resolution of mind. The Resolution of the soldiers will be very 
much in fighting for his Country according to his Interest in it and if 
I must go out Let me have an Army of freeholders or freeholders 
sons ... 27 

The remainder of the letter is but further emphasis of his idea 
of the expediency of having the freemen owners rather than 
leaseholders of the land. 

Later in the year Thomas Fitch was governor of Connecticut 
and Robert Morris, governor of Pennsylvania. In a letter^^ to 
Governor Morris, Governor Fitch states even more conclusively 
than to Governor Hamilton his intention to do his utmost to 
prevent the further proceedings of the company. 

The company, however, as has been shown, had already bought 
the land from the Indians. During the May session of 1755 it 
presented its first petition, as an organized company, to the 
assembly. The proceedings of the assembly^^ show that 

Upon petition ... of The Susquehanna Company, . . . repre- 
senting that this Colony according to the express limits of its royal 
Charter is in extent from the Narragansett Bay on the east to the South 
Sea on the west, and from the sea-shore on the south to the line of the 
Massachusetts Province on the north ... it was 



=" Roger Wolcott to James Hamilton, Mar. 13, 1754, Wolcott Papers. 
Conn. Hist. Soc. Colls., XVI. p. 435. 

'''Fitch to Morris, Nov. 29, 1754, Fitch Papers, I, p. 71. 
^' Harvey, I, p. 307. 



Radicalism in Connecticut, 1754-1775 199 

Rcsok'cd by this Asscttfbly, That they are of opinion that the peaceably 
and orderly erecting and carrying on some new and well-regulated 
Colony or plantation on the lands above-said would greatly tend to fix 
and secure said Indian nations in allegiance to His Majesty and friendship 
with his subjects; and accordingly hereby manifest their ready acquiesence 
therein, if it should be His Majesty's royal pleasure to grant said lands 
to said petitioners, and thereon erect and settle a new Colony in such 
form and under such regulations as might be consistent with his royal 
wisdom ; and also take leave humbly to recommend the said petitioners to 
his royal favors in the premises. 

Thus Connecticut gave an official blessing to the project without 
assuming any responsibility whatever regarding the charter and 
the title to the land. 

The next letter of expostulation from Pennsylvania was not 
written until February, 1761 ; the records of the Susquehannah 
Company, moreover, are totally devoid of information from 
the meeting of May 1755 until this date.^° After the purchase 
had been made it had been impossible for the company to proceed 
with the matter of settlements on account of the hostility of 
the Indians. Ever angered at the loss of their lands, even at 
the hands of their own sachems, they resented the purchase of 
the Susquehannah Company as well as that of the Pennsylvania 
Proprietors. Emboldened by Braddock's defeat, the Delaware 
Indians had gone on the war-path against the Pennsylvania 
settlers. On account of the policy of inaction of the Pennsyl- 
vania Assembly, the people had been forced to leave the whole 
line of the frontier. Sir William Johnson, superintendent — and 
champion — of the Indians in the northern department, main- 
tained that the Six Nations, though themselves actively taking 
the side of the English, still connived at the hostility of the 
Delawares, a tribe that the Iroquois had conquered.'^ ^ This 
connivance was the result of the large land purchase of 1754. 

At a conference held at Easton, Pennsylvania, in Oct., 1758, 
a treaty was enacted to which all the tribes of the Six Nations 
and various Delaware bands were party. ^- One of the causes 



"Ibid., p. 317. 

^^ Sir William Johnson to Lords of Trade and Plantations, Sept. 1756, 
Harvey, I, p. 323. 
''Ibid., I, p. 379. 



200 Smith College Studies in History 

of trouble that was there disposed of was the Pennsylvania 

purchase, a part of which was re-conveyed to the Iroquois. ^^ 

At about this time, also, a group of Christian Dela wares were 

settled in a town, called Wyoming, where houses had been built 

for them at the expense of the Pennsylvania government. In 

the summer of 1757, when negotiations for peace were being 

made with this clan, which had taken sides actively for the 

French, its chief, Teedyuscung, had made the following request: 

We intend to settle at Wyoming, and we want to have certain boun- 
daries fixed between you and us, and a certain tract of land fixed which 
it shall not be lawful for us or our children ever to sell, nor for you or 
any of your children ever to buy.^^ 

The governor had replied to this: 

The Proprietaries have never granted away any lands, although within 
the limits of this Province, without first purchasing them of the Indians. 
And having never bought of them the lands between Shamokin and 
Wyoming they have, therefore, never laid claim to them under any Indian 
purchase ; and in the name of the Proprietaries I now disclaim all such 
right. Of which I would have you take notice. 3-J 

When finally the Indians had settled down and peace and 
harmony seemed to prevail, the Connecticut Delaware Company 
sent settlers, in the fall of 1760, to take possession of the land 
they had purchased. Their deed was not from the clan of which 
Teedyuscung was chief, nor from the Iroqouis, but from a tribe 
of the Dela wares who lived farther north on the Delaware 
River. Upon hearing of this settlement the governor of Penn- 
sylvania (Hamilton again held this office) sent a committee to 
investigate the matter ; the committee's report^*' contained the 
following" alarming statement : 

It is strongly affirmed that every individual member of the Upper 
House, and the chief part of the Lower House, of the Assembly of Con- 
necticut, are interested and concerned in said purchase. The Governor 
has not yet thought proper to suffer his name to be made use of, but his 
son is one of the proprietaries. 

They had unwittingly identified the Delaware with the Susque- 
hannah Company, greatly exaggerating what would have been 



'Ibid., I. p. 381. 
'Ibid., I, pp. 356, 357. 
'Ibid., I, p. 357. 
Ibid., I. p. 391. 



Radicalism in Connecticutt, 1754-1775 201 

the strength of the' combination. Probably not more than four 
of the councilmen were members of either company at that 
time, and certainly not nearly half of the Lower House belonged. 

With this report in mind Governor Hamilton wrote again 
to Governor Fitch. This second letter was more peremptory in 
tone than the first. In the light of their former correspondence 
Governor Hamilton was surprised to learn that the project had 
been revived. The Delawares, having heard of the settlements, 
had sent their chiefs to him to say that, if the government would 
not remove those intruders, then the Indians would do so by 
force. Moreover, they desired that the settlers be told this, in 
order that they might not pretend ignorance. He said that he 
could not persuade himself that the settlers had the encourage- 
ment of the government, although they had maintained that 
they would stay where they were until the matter should be 
decided by the crown. Once more he requested Governor Fitch 
to use his influence with them in order to avoid "running the 
Risque of being cut ofif by the Indians, and involving us in a 
new War with them" or of putting him "to the disagreeable 
necessity of using legal Measures to remove them."^'' In reply 
to this letter Governor Fitch wrotc^- a careful analysis of the 
situation brought about by the presentation of the Susquehannah 
Company's memorial in 1755 and the attitude taken by the 
assembly, stating that the whole matter of the charter lay with 
the crown. Although the Connecticut government could not, 
in his opinion, intervene as Governor Hamilton desired, he 
promised to use his influence to avert the expected "ill conse- 
quences." 

Governor Hamilton then appealed to General Amherst, who 
wrote, accordingly, to Governor Fitch. In his reply to this 
Fitch stated the same facts that he had related in his letter to 
Hamilton. "You will therefore See, Sir," he wrote, "there is 
no Dispute between the two Governments about those Lands ; 



Hamilton to Fitch, Feb. 10, 1761, Fitch Papers, II (proof). 
Fitch to Flamilton, May 7, 1761, Fitch Papers, II (proof). 



202 Smith College Studies in History 

. . . as I am Sensible a Controversy with the Indians would 
be very Unhappy, I shall Endeavor all I can to Dissuade the 
people iJiat Live in Connecticut from laying any foundation for 
such bad Consequences."^^ 

Whatever the influence exerted within Connecticut to induce 
the two land companies to cease their activity, its was unavailing. 
The Susquehannah Company held a meeting in May, 1762, to 
"determine if possible to throw in Settlements upon the said 
Lands ;" they accordingly "obtained Votes for above One Hun- 
dred Families who promise to proceed immediately and in 
defiance of Mr. Penn and his Emissaries to plant themselves 
down on the Lands. "^° 

In July of that same year the company voted to increase 
to two hundred the number of settlers to be sent out. At the 
same meeting it was also voted : 

. . . that Col. Eliphalet Dyer, Col. Eleazer Fitch and Joseph Chew 
to be a committee to wait on Sir William Johnson to lay before him 
the case of our Susquehanna Purchase, make application to him for 
what intelligence can be had from him relating to said affair, and if 
possible, gain his friendship and interest so far as is consistent with the 
general good.'ii 

This shows that the members of the company could not have 

realized how deep seated was the feeling of Sir William Johnson 

against any intrusion on the rights of the Indians — or on what 

they considered their rights — nor how determined he was in his 

opposition to any such violation of their rights. 

The committee seems not to have waited upon Sir William 

Johnson, but in March, 1763, Eliphalet Dyer and Timothy 

Woodbridge did so while he was holding a conference with 

some Mohawk and Seneca chiefs. Concerning this visit Sir 

William wrote the following in his diary: 

The beforementioned gentlemen [Dyer and Woodbridge] then made 
me an offer to be a partner in ye land, and to send up the money to me, 
also the bullocks and pork, etc., that I might call ye Six Nations and 
give it them, provided they agreed to their proposal — all which I refused 

^ Fitch to Amherst, May 30, 1761, Fifch Papers, II (proof). 
** Stephen Sayre's account of what he heard in Connecticut respecting 
the Susquehannah settlement, June, 1762, Fitch Papers, II (proof). 
^^ Harvey, I, p. 402. 



Radicalism in Connecticut, 1754-1775 203 

with ye slight it deserved, and gave them my opinion on the whole affair ; 
and also told them the unhappy consequences that would in all probability 
follow should they (as they often hinted) form a settlement in these 
parts.42 

How little Dyer and Woodbridge were persuaded by his 

arguments, Sir William related in a letter to General Amherst, 

who, in turn, wrote about it to Governor Fitch -^^ 

Notwithstanding all the Arguments he made Use of to Diswade them 
from the Attempt, they Assured him that the Susquehannah Company, 
as they called them, were Determined to Settle Immediately on the land, 
to the Amount of a Thousand Families and Upwards whom they Judged 
Sufficient to Defend their Claim against any Opposition. 

Before this meeting, either in January, or, more probably, 

some time in the latter part of 1762, Sir Wm. Johnson had 

reported to the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations 

concerning the complaints of the Delaware Indians. •*•* These 

complaints had been 

. . . against the Proprietors of Pennsylvania concerning certain 
lands of which those Indians deemed themselves to have been defrauded, 
and also . . . against several people of Connecticut who were coming 
to settle at Wyoming on the River Susquehannah, which had greatly 
alarmed the Jelousy of the Indians. 

The dispute between the Proprietors of Pennsylvania and the 
Indians had, however, so he reported, been happily concluded. 
The action taken by the home government was immediate. 
The Earl of Egremont, Secretary of State for the Northern 
Department, wrote the following to Governor Fitch : 

After the Letter you wrote to Sir Jeffrey Amherst on the 30th May 
1761, on the subject of some People from Connecticut, who were, under 
pretended Purchases, making Settlements in the Neighborhood of the 
Rivers Susquehannah and Delaware, which Settlements appeared to be 
contrary to the Inclination of the Indians, The King hoped that an 
effectual Stop would have been put to an Attempt, which threatens so 
much danger of an Indian War, as, by this Letter, you seem sensible 
that a controversy with the Indians would be very unhappy, and add, 
that you shall endeavour all you can to dissuade the People that live in 
Connecticut from laying any foundation for such bad Consequences. 

His Majesty, however, having latelye received Information, that the 
People, concerned in this Undertaking, persist in this Project of making 



'Harvey, I, p. 4n. 

'Amherst to Fitch, Apr. 10, 1763, Fitch Papers, II (proof). 

'Report of Committee of Council, Fitch Papers, II (proof). 



204 Smith College Studies in History 

the said Settlement, tho' the Indians did appear as much averse to it as 
ever; The King has commanded me to express to you His Surprise at 
this Behaviour, as well as His Displeasure to find, that Any of His 
Subjects in America, so little sensible of the Blessings of Peace, and 
of the Dangers from which They are but just secured, should persist in 
an Undertaking of this Nature, which may, in all probability, involve 
Them, and their Fellow Subjects, in all the Horrors and Calamities of 
an Indian War, just at the Time, that His Majesty has actually under 
consideration such precautions as may most effectually prevent so great 
an Evil; It is therefore the King's Pleasure, that you do exert every 
legal Authority over the People in your Government, and employ youre 
utmost Influence to prevent the Prosecution of any such Settlement, till 
the State of the Case can be laid before the King, and the necessary 
Precautions taken to obviate any fresh Troubles in America, and you 
will use every means in your Power to withdraw from this Settlement 
any Persons actually thereto 

The letter, however, was not sent directly to Governor Fitch 
but enclosed with a copy, in a letter to General Amherst, who 
was directed to forward it or not, according to his best judgment. 
The letter to General Amherst^ ^ brings out still more clearly the 
attitude of the home government toward the Indians ; 

. . . you will enforce the Orders therein contain'd by every Argu- 
ment you can suggest to induce the People of that Colony to desist from 
any Undertaking of so much Danger, and you will employ every legal 
Means in your Power, for this purpose : The King trusts, that you will, 
at least, be able to prevail with the People concerned in this pretended 
Purchase, to suspend, for the present, the making the Settlement in 
Question^ 'till you shall have reported to me, for the King's Information, 
a true State of this Matter ; And you will accordingly make the necessary 
Inquiries into it, that His Majesty may be able to judge, what further 
Orders it may be expendient to give to prevent effectually any Hazard 
of an Indian War, His Maty having it much at heart to conciliate the 
Affection of the Indian Nations, by every act of strict Justice, and by 
affording them His Royal Protection from any Incroachment on the Lands 
they have reserved to themselves, for their Hunting Grounds, & for their 
own Support & Habitation : and I may inform You that a Plan for this 
desirable End, is actually under Consideration. 

Sir William Johnson wrote not only to the Lords Commis- 
sioners of Trade and Plantations but to Governor Fitch as well. 
As soon as he received Governor Fitch's reply he wrote^''' to 
Governor Hamilton concerning his letter and its answer. Gov- 



^'Earl of Egremont to Fitch, Jan. 27, 1763, Fitch Papers, II (proof). 

^'Earl of Egremont to Gen. Amherst, Jan. 27, 1763, Fitch Papers, II 
(proof). 

^■^ Sir William Johnson to Gov. Hamilton, Apr. 30, 1763, Penn. Archives, 
IV, p. 103. 



Radicalism in Connecticutt, 1754-1775 205 

ernor Fitch, so Sir William wrote, had written "that he would 
take the first opportunity to lay the matter before the Assembly 
which would sit in May, & recommend these affairs to their 
serious consideration ; doubting not but they would be disposed 
to take every proper measure that might come within their power 
to preserve a good Harmony & understanding with ye 6 
Nations." Sir William told Hamilton of the letters that Sir 
Jeffrey [General] Amherst had received; speaking of the one 
from the Earl of Egremont to Governor Fitch he continued, 

I am hopeful this will meet with all just deference, & that his Majesty's 
orders will be obeyed, altho' those concerned have been hitherto blind 
enough to slight the representations made then repeatedly from me. 

The Inds of the whole Confederacy are now met in a General Meeting 
at Onondago, on acct of a message sent them by me, to which I have 
sent some of both Mohawk Castles to enforce my desire. As they are 
much alarmed at the proposed settlement, I dare say they will take the 
same into their serious consideration, with the result whereof I shall as 
soon as possible make you acquainted, as I have nothing more at heart 
than the preservation of peace, and the preventing any unjust encroachments 
to the prejudice of ye original owners, & the disadvantage of the Proprie- 
taries of Pennsylvania. 

His Majesty's orders were obeyed, for, during the May 

session of the assembly, 1763, the Susquehannah Company held 

a meeting and passed the requisite resolutions. 

And IVhcrcas (whether by representation mistaken or unfriendly may 
be uncertain) His Majesty has been induced to inhibit all entries on said 
land by any party or person soever, till due inquiry be made into the state 
of the matter, ... we do thereupon Vote, That no Person belonging 
to the Company shall make any settlement, or enter upon, any of the 
Company's lands until the state of the case shall be laid before the King, 
and His Majesty's pleasure be known. ^s 

Notwithstanding this official resolution, however, the mem- 
bers of the company did continue to go to Wyoming to settle. 
The previous year a number of men had made a beginning of 
cultivation at a place called Mill Creek, returning home to 
Connecticut for the winter. In the spring and summer various 
groups of them went back to Mill Creek with their families. 
Earlier in the spring a fire, the cause of which is unknown, had 
broken out in the village of Wyoming and burned several of 

'^ Harvey, I, p. 415. 



206 Smith College Studies in History 

the houses that the Pennsylvania government had built there for 
the Delaware Indians. Teedyuscung, the chief who had so 
opposed the coming of the Connecticut settlers, "lying in a 
drunken stupor,"^^ had been burned to death in his house. 

Before the May session of 1763 had adjourned, four repre- 
sentatives of the Six Nations, two Cayugas and two Senecas,^*^ 
had come to Hartford to complain of the settlements even then 
being made on the Wyoming lands. These chiefs said that the 
Iroquois as a whole had never consented to the Susquehannah 
purchase. In answer to their complaints Governor Fitch said : 

We assure and tell you this Government has not given any orders for 
any such settlement. We are no ways concerned in that matter, only as 
friends to you we have endeavored to prevent the people from going to 
settle those lands ... 

He told them further of the orders of the King and the resolu- 
tions of the company in obedience to them.^^ 

Not even this concerted opposition was sufficient to balk the 
Susquehannah Company's dauntless agent. Colonel Dyer. Ac- 
companied by other influential members he went to Albany in 
June, where he obtained from five Mohawk sachems a deed 
confirming the earlier deed the company had received on July 
11, 1754. With this deed and an affidavit"^ he was then ready 
to go to London to petition the King for grant, according to his 
instructions as agent of the company. 

But two forces, too strong even for the indomitable will of 
Colonel Dyer and his associates, soon put an end to all settlements 
by members of the Susquehannah Company. The first was the 
final decisive action of the Indians. A band of Delawares, 
under Captain Bull, the son of Teedyuscung, surprised and 
murdered, on October 15, 1763, the Susquehannah people, who 
were all gathered together in one settlement at ]\Iill Creek. This 
was one of the incidents of the Pontiac War. The second was 
the decisive action of the home government. According to the 



' Harvey, I, p. 413. 
'Ibid., I, p. 417. 

■Ncii' York Gazette, July 18, 1763, Harvey, I, p. 416. 
See ch. ii, notes 19, 21 above. 



Radicalism in Connecticut, 1754-1775 207 

order of the King in Council, the governors of Pennsylvania 

and Connecticut were each to appoint a commissioner and to 

instruct him. 

. . . with all convenient speed to proceed ... to the . said Set- 
tlement at Wyoming and there to cause his Commission to be read and 
published with all due Solemnity, and immediately after Publication thereof 
to require and command the Inhabitants, in Our Name, forthwith to 
desist from this said Undertaking, and to depart and remove from thence 
within such limited time, as you, in your Discretion shall think necessary 
and reasonable.53 

Late in 1762 the Pennsylvania Proprietors had presented 
their case to Attorney General Pratt. He had decided that after 
the king's commission had settled the boundary lines between 
Connecticut and New York, in 1664, Connecticut had "no right 
to resume the ancient boundary by overleaping New York and 
encroaching upon Penn's grant which was not made until after 
the Connecticut Boundary had been reduced by new confines."^** 
It was upon this opinion that the King had based his orders. ^^ 

Governor Fitch acted at once upon receipt of the King's 

orders. There were then, however, no people to whom to make 

the proclamation. He therefore made the following report : 

The Commissioner on the part of Connecticut set out in order to 
proceed to Wyoming and there duely and faithfully to execute the King's 
Commands and on his return reported to me that on his Journey he 
received Intelligence that the inhabitants at Wyoming which were but 
very few were cut off by the Indians and that the Settlement was wholly 
broke up, upwards of thirty Persons it was said were killed or captivated 
and but few escaped. But that he nevertheless proceeded to Philadelphia 
when he received from Lieut. Hamilton a full Confirmation of the unhappy 
Disaster of those poor and miserable People.^c 

Thus closed the first period of the company's activity. The 
attitude taken by the home government, mainly for the sake of 
the Indians and aided by the conduct of the Indians, had appar- 
ently stopped effectually the expansion of Connecticut into this 
part of the country. 

°' Proceedings of the King in Council, June 15, 1763, Fitch Papers, II 
(proof). 

^*" . . . taken from a Pamphlet some Time since published in 
Philadelphia said to be wrote by Dr. Smith." Connecticut Courant, Feb. 
IS, 1774. 

"Harvey, I, p. 414. 

°* Fitch to Commissioners of Trade and Plantations, Nov. 10, 1763, 
Fitch Papers, II (proof). 



208 Smith College Studies in History 

CHAPTER ni 
The Susquehannah Company 
Second Period 
The opposition shown by the home government to the desire 
of the Susquehannah Company for expansion brought about a 
corresponding opposition to Great Britain within the colony. The 
history of the second period of activity of the Company shows 
the development of that reaction. The presence of Colonel Dyer 
in London as agent for the Susquehannah and Delaware Com- 
panies, for they had voted to unite in an application to His 
Majesty, was the only evidence that the companies were still 
alive after the two heavy blows they had received in the fall of 
1763. It was not a propitious time to petition for a charter, and 
anyone less sanguine than Dyer would probably have awaited 
a more favorable season. A friend of his, though an opposer 
of his mission, wrote concerning his going, 

. . . from the Present very great disputes and unsettled State of the 
Ministry as well as the Indian Dispute believe he had better have waited 
a Little Longer. i 

The author of the letter referred to the Pontiac War, which was 
going on at this time, and the dissatisfaction of the king with 
the Grenville ministry, which he was hoping to change to a 
"broad bottom" one. When Dyer reached London he was ready 
to listen to the advice of the agent of the colony, Richard 
Jackson, and consequently he did wait. The following year, 
having presented his petition to the king in Council,- he 
returned to Connecticut, leaving the matter of the land companies 
in the hands of a solicitor. Upon Dyer's return meetings of 
the Susquehannah Company were once more held ; not, however, 
until December 28, 1768, was it formally decided again to 
undertake the settlement of the Wyoming lands. The history 
of the Delaware Company becomes obscure at about this point. 
The two companies seem, at some time, to have amalgamated. 



'Chew to Ingersoll, July 27, 1763, Nezv Haven Hist. Soc. Colls., IX, 
p. 285. 

' Harvey, I, p. 442. 



Radicalism in Connecticut, 1754-1775 209 

During the time of waiting the members of the company 
had not been idle but had been carrying on propaganda to make 
the project of settlement on their lands a popular one. Dr. 
Benjamin Gale, who was later a violent opponent of the company, 
wrote to William Samuel Johnson about it as this time; 

I observe you say Susquehanna petition still Lyes before K & Council. 
We have been amused with pompous advertisements just before proxis in 
Aprill & Sepr Annually.3 

While the western lands were being talked of alluringly in 
newspaper advertisements, the company was deciding upon just 
how to go about getting the lands, notwithstanding the orders 
of the king; for whatever it should do, it wished to avoid the 
appearance of violating those orders. Again there came to the 
fore the reliance of the Connecticut colonist upon the right of 
possession. The company had appointed William Samuel John- 
son, who was in London acting in the interest of the colony in 
the Mohegan case, as its agent there ; Colonel Dyer, therefore, 
wrote to him freely in regard to the plans of the company ; 

. . . if the Decree of the King in Councill — (obtained by Craft & 
Deceit) against our Settlement of the Susqh Lands under a notion that the 
Consequence would be an Indian Warr could be removed , out of ye way 
or the reason of that Decree be looked upon at this time as not Existing so 
as it might not be esteemed Tumultuous Disobedient Contemptuous & to 
settle as being Contrary to His Majesty' Decree we should Immediately 
go on and settle and should not give our selves the Trouble of prosecuting 
our Petition any farther at present we do not doubt of our Claim & Title 
and as to Incorporation it would come of Course . . . the Substance 
(of the Decree) is that the Govr. be ordered to Signify to that Company 
that they do not proceed to settle upon those lands till the King's pleasure 
be further known therein now since that time a line has been ordered by 
the Board of Trade to be settled between the English & Indians beyond 
which the English are not to settle within which the Indians are not to 
Trouble or Molest any Settlers this line leaves our Susqh County or ye 
English side to Settle if they please, for we may presume that Decree had 
no relation or Intention to Serve Mr Penn but merely respected the Indians 
we want to have the matter of that Decree thoroughly discussed and if it 
stands in the say of our Settlement it must be removed if possible.-^ 

The line to which Dyer referred was settled by the Treaty 
of Fort Stanwix in October of that year. At the same confer- 



'Gale to W. S. Johnson, Dec. I, 1767, Johnson MSS. (loose). 
*Dyer to W. S. Johnson, July 12, 1768, Johnson MSS. IV; No. 4. 



210 Smith College Studies in History 

ence, however, action was taken that brought into the situation 
a new element of complication. The agents of the Pennsylvania 
Proprietors bovight the Wyoming lands from six sachems, one 
representing each tribe of the Six Nations. These lands included 
practically the whole territory that had been bought in July, 
1754, from sachems representing the Iroquois, by the Susque- 
hannah Company, two of the sachems who signed the later 
deed having, moreover, also signed the earlier one ;^ it included 
also the land that had been bought from a band of Delaware In- 
dians by the Delaware Company. This territory was then divided 
into manors, small tracts of which were surveyed for the purpose 
of being leased, so that the land might immediately be occupied 
by those who would protect the interests of the Pennsylvania 
Proprietors.*^ 

The Susquehannah Company realized that this action required 
an immediate count erstroke. In its advertisement announcing 
a meeting of the company on December 28, 1768, it accordingly 
spread broadcast the subterfuge that Dyer had described to 
Johnson, by means of which it might proceed while not appearing 
to violate the orders of the King: 

Whereas, the lands formerly purchased by New England people and 
others (commonly called The Susquehanna Company) of the Six Nations 
of Indians, and lying on Susquehanna River, are within the grant made 
to the Governor and Company of the Colony of Connecticut, in the most 
plain and legal construction thereof; and His Majesty's prohibition as to 
the settling of those lands pointing out the dissatisfaction and disturbance 
that such settlement might occasion to those Indians as the only reason of 
such prohibition; and, as in consequence of His Majesty's order at the 
late congress at Fort Stanwix, such precautions have been taken as to 
obviate any fresh troubles with the Indians ; and the Indians being now 
quieted and satisfied— it appears that nothing reasonable lies in the way 
against the Susquehanna purchasers going on and settling those lands, 
purchased by them (lying within the line settled with the Indians at said 
congress), as soon as conveniently may be ... " 

The meeting to decide upon the method of settlement was accord- 
ingly held. Joseph Trumbull, who had just returned from 



' Harvey, I, pp. 277 ff. 
" Ibid, I, pp. 452, ff. 
' Ibid., I, pp. 462, 463. 



Radicalism in Connecticut, 1754-1775 211 

London, wrote back to William Samuel Johnson concerning what 
was done at the meeting : 

The Susquehannah Company had a meeting at Hartford last Week, 
& unanimously agreed to pursue the Settlements of those of their Lands 
which are Ceded to the English by the Indians in the late Treaty— borty 
men of the Compy are to go on & take Possession the Lands by the 1st ot 
Febry that they mav get possession, if possible, before Mr. Penn— for their 
encouragement they are to have the first Choice of a Township to be 
equally divided among the Forty-as the 1st of June 200 more Heads of 
Family's are to go on, and have 4 Townships among them, the whole Z4U, 
to be afterwards equall shares, with the rest of the Proprietors in the 
Division of the Remaining Lands, They are all in high Spirits & no want 
of People to embrace the offered Encouragements for Settling, their ardour 
will rather want Restraining, than need any Prompting-Mr Penn, in 
their opinion, is now all their obstacle, & that Point they think may as 
well be determined now as ever-As to matters of the Goverment, they 
judge it no favorable Time now, to apply on that Head, & a Government 
by Compact, or even Mr. Penn is better for a Country just beginning their 
Settlements, than any they can expect to obtain, in the present Situation 
of Affairs, & the Low Credit America is in, & the high Notions intertained 
of their right of Jurisdiction for the Colonies.s 

These prospective settlers who were to further the claim of 
the Susquehannah Company through their right of possession, 
were under instructions "that they hold not the same or any 
part of said Purchase under pretence of any other claim but of 
said Company ;"9 moreover they had orders to behave quietly 
and peacably. Just how they hoped this possession would react 
to their advantage is explained in a letter from Dyer to John- 



son: 



we are ready to Submit to any civil action or process where the 
Title and our Claim may be fairly Tried & to that purpose our possession 
is absolutely necessary as we on our part could not bring forward any action 
n that province without giving up one material part of our Defence which 
vo„ will readily see . . . we have not the least Intention to hold those 
lands by force and if the Proprietaries will bring an action against our 
peope in possession of Ejectment or any other civil process which will 
brhig the Title into Question we are ready to answer thereto without the 
least force.io 

The people were flocking from Connecticut to the Wyoming 
lands. The company was not just then pinning its faith to its 

«Jos. Trumbull to W. S. Johnson, Jan. 15. 1769. Johnson MSS. IV; 
No. 5. 

^»Dy7r't; W's.'johnson, Aug. 8, 1769, Johnson MSS. IV; No. 7. 



212 Smith College Studies in History 

petition to the crown ; what it desired to do was to force a civil 
action in Pennsylvania, for it felt itself on solid ground there. 
Governor Trumbull gave expression to this feeling of security : 
"Who had the right? Who first purchased title of the Indians? 
Who took the first possession ?"^i 

The civil action that the Susquehannah Company so earnestly 
desired was, however, just as earnestly avoided by the Penn- 
sylvania Proprietors. They were in great disfavor within their 
province, while the Connecticut title of fee simple had made the 
idea of holding under the Connecticut Company's claim a popular 
one with the farmers of Pennsylvania. Instead of a civil action 
the Proprietors brought criminal action against the settlers, 
greatly to the disgust of the Susquehannah people. The minutes 
of the Company give expression to this feeling : 

Whereas, This Company are fully sensible of the equity and justice of 
their claims to the Susquehanna country, and of the rectitude of their 
intention in prosecuting their claims (which had been to gain possession 
of those lands in order to lay a foundation for a legal trial and decision 
of their cause) ; yet, instead of the Proprietors of Pennsylvania bringing 
forward or prosecuting any proper civil action in which the title to those 
lands might be set up and brought into question for a legal decision and 
determination ; instead thereof have made divers attempts to drive us off 
by force (though under pretext of law process for riots and actions of 
a criminal nature) . . .12 

A petition of the Proprietors, Thomas and Richard Penn, 

to the Crown had not received the answer they desired. They 

were left to settle their own troubles, as the following report 

shows : 

We are clearly of the opinion that the forcible intrusion alleged by 
the Proprietaries of Pennsylvania is a matter entirely within the jurisdic- 
tion of this Province, and that it would be both unnecessary and improper 
for His Majesty to interpose his authority in a case when there is not 
the least colour of a plea that the Charter of the Province of Pennsylvania 
does not contain the powers necessary to the decision of any suits which 
may be brought into the Courts there, in cases where the title of lands 
may be in question ; nor that the state of the Province does not afford 
the means to support the execution of the laws, preserve the public peace 
and enforce the legal process of the magistrates and Courts of judica- 
ture. 1 3 



"Jonathan Trumbull to Thomas Life, April 25, 1774,' Harvey, H, 
p. 804. 

"Harvey, II, p. 725. 

"Report of Board of Trade, July 1.3, 1770, Harvey, II, p. 665. 



Radicalism in Connecticut, 1754-1775 213 

In forwarding a copy of this report to the agents of the Proprie- 
tors, Henry Wilmot^ their solicitor in London, wrote, 

. . . and the dispute not being betzvccn Colony and Colony the Pro- 
prietaries left to get rid of these intruders as they can. The Proprietaries, 
therefore, must get rid of them as they can, at any expense! They are 
settled in Pennsylvania, and the laws of that Province must remove 
'em!i4 

That the dispute might be taken up by the colony and be 
backed by its authority was just what was desired by the 
majority of the members of the Susquehannah Company, both 
the settlers in Wyoming and the influential men still in Con- 
necticut, and what they were using every effort to accomplish. 
The settlers at Wilkes-Barre in Wyoming, as early as August, 
1769, sent a memorial to the Connecticut Assembly petitioning 
that the colony assert its rights of jurisdiction over the new 
settlement. William Samuel Johnson, however, from his van- 
tage point in London, judged that it would not be expedient 
for the colony to do so at that time. He, therefore, wrote to 
the governor the following letter upon the subject : 

. . . I have a very good opinion of the legal right of the Colony 
to those Western lands, notwithstanding the settlement with New York, 
and know not how it could be avoided upon a fair trial at law. Those 
lands are plainly within the words of the charter and that settlement [New 
York] ought not to preclude the title to the remainder. 

The opinion, hoAvever, that in general prevails here, founded upon some 
decisions of the Lords of the Council, is, that all the ancient charters and 
patents in the Colonies, being vague in their descriptions, drawn by persons 
often unacquainted with the geography of the country, and interfering 
frequently with each other, must be limited by the actual occupation, or 
other efficient claim, evidenced by overt acts of the early settlers ; and 
since this is their notion of the matter, it seems plain that such claim 
woufd not be very highly favored here, and will probably give much offence 
if made by the Colony . . . with regard to the Susquehannah Company, 
for whose interests, as I have said, I am enough solicitous, it does not 
appear to me that a grant to them is at all necessary from the Colony,, 
to enable them to defend against ]\Ir. Penn. He must make out his own 
title, and recover in his own strength. They are in possession, and that 



"Henry Wilmont to agents of Proprietaries, Aug. 13, 1770, H:.:vey, II, 
p. 666. 



214 Smith College Studies in History 

possession is good against him, until he establishes a clear title, both under 
the Crown and from the Indians, which he can never do while it appears 
that the lands . . . were granted to the Colony of Connecticut in 
1662 ... I should think it perfectly right to give them a release 
of the Colony title, when the controversy is over; but to do it now, while 
the dispute is on foot, will . . . seem to be taking some part in the 
controversy; and it will then, I fear, be thought here to be no longer the 
controversy of the Company, but of the Colony, ... the resentment 
will be against the Colony alone, and they, we know, may feel consequences 
which the Company cannot. I'J 

The struggle between the Connecticut settlers and those whom 
the Pennsylvania Proprietors had hired to drive them away 
had been going on with the victory first on one side and then 
the other. In October, 1770, Captain Ogden had made a 
raid into the Wyoming lands, sent the principal settlers 
to Philadelphia, lodged the rank and file in the jail at Easton, 
and driven the women and children from the valley.^^ This 
was almost too discouraging for even stout-hearted Eliphalet 
Dyer. He felt that William Samuel Johnson had served the 
company a very ill turn in advising against the assertion, on the 
part of the colony, of its claim to the Susquehannah lands. The 
following letter expressed the bitterness of his feelings: 

I hope our affairs are not desperate tho under a dark cloud for the 
present, all the misfortunes which have hapened have arose from the 
neglect of the Colony in the affair which if they had Countenansed in a 
proper manner no attempts of the kind I have mentioned would ever I 
presume to say have been upon our people . . . these proceedings of 
the Proprietaries agents we imagine to be Illegal & unconstitutional but 
how to relieve ourselves we know not so long as you disuade & Terrifye 
the Colony against making any Claim or Exercising their Jurisdiction 
over that Country if the Colony would once Extend their Jurisdiction there 
we should soon regain our possession there but untill something is done 
by the Colony it will be to no purpose for we shall Continually be exposed 
to the robberies of our adversaries & have our people at least some of 
them carried of & Confined in their Goals without relief as we can force 
no Action or Trial wherein we can put the Title in question fairly & take 
an appeal to the K in Council, i" 

The members of the Susquehannah Company felt that there 
was no hope of ultimate success for them imless the Connecticut 



"W. S. Johnson to Jona. Trumbull, Feb. 26, 1770, Tnimbull Papers, 
Mass. Hist. Soc. Colls. 5th Series, IX, p. 411 ff. 
^"Harvey, II, p. 684. 
"Dyer to W. S. Johnson, Dec. IS, 1770, Johnson MSS. IV: No. 14. 



Radicalism in Connecticut, 1754-1775 215 

government would recognize the Wyoming lands as part of 
the colony. While the settlers at Wyoming were fighting with 
the "pennamites" to keep possession of the land, the company 
members, back in Connecticut, were carrying on a political 
struggle with the object of gaining the support of the colony as 
the most effectual means of aiding their distressed brethren. 
There was another group of politicians, however, that was just 
as determined that the colony should not take over and support 
the claim of the Susquehannah Company. 

A few years previous to this, while the company was still 
awaiting His Majesty's pleasure in regard to its petition for 
a Charter, there had occurred in Connecticut a violent and un- 
precedented political upheaval. As a result Governor Fitch and 
four of the councilmen failed of reelection. Deputy governor 
Pitkin became governor in 1766, followed, upon his death in 
October, 1769, by Jonathan Trumbull. The Susquehannah 
Company then once more in May 1769 presented a memorial 
to the assembly. This time the petition was not for their 
Honors' permission for an application to His Majesty, but for 
a deed of Lease and Release, by the granting of which the 
assembly would have asserted the claim of the colony to the 
disputed lands. Although the councilmen who were members 
of the Susquehannah Company withdrew when the vote was 
taken, the Upper House, nevertheless, voted to grant the 
petition. ^'^ This action shows how the attitude of the council 
toward the Susquehannah Company had changed with the 
removal of the above mentioned few members. These men, 
still popular in their own communities, notwithstanding their 
loss of general favor, were elected to the Lower House, where 
they continued to exert a strong influence. ^^ The Lower House 
voted repeatedly against the petition. 



''Dr. Benj. Gale to E. W., Esquire, Jul. 25, 1769, pamphlet. 

'" "Our Election you doubtless have been notified Terminated as the 
preceeding Year, The Superior Court nominated by the Upper House, 
came down, laid bye in the Lower House, who made a Nomination of 
their own, it was designed to make Choice of GoV Fitch, & the 4 Excluded 
Councellors— Gov Fitch was Chose in ye L [ower] H [ouse] by a majority 
of 10, but Coll Silliman having fallen under the Displeasure of his County 



216 Smith College Studies in History 

In the May session, in 1771, the assembly passed the follow- 
ing resokition :~^ 

Resolved, That the lands west of the Delaware, and in latitude of that 
part of the Colony eastwast of the Province of New York, are well con- 
tained within the boundaries and discriptions of the Charter granted by 
King Charles II in 1662. 

Thus the company finally succeeded in winning the vote of the 
Lower House to an assertion of its claim to the western lands 
by appeahng to the people before the assembly met in its May 
session. Petitions had been circulated throughout the colony, 
praying the assembly to incorporate the Wyoming lands into a 
county in order to relieve the distress of the settlers there. These 
petitions were to be signed by those who did not l^elong to the 
company.- 1 This concession was, however, only a minor, 
although necessary, part of the desire on the part of the 
company. It did not succeed in getting the assembly to maintain 
that claim by incorporating those lands into a county of Con- 
necticut. 

During the October session of 1773 the assembly received 
from four of the most eminent attorneys in England-^ a 
favorable decision as to the claims of the colony, through its 
charter, to the western lands. Accordingly it sent a committee 
to treat with the governor of Pennsylvania as to some means of 
settling the dispute, or of applying to the Crown to appoint 
commissioners to decide it. At the January session of 1774, 
the committee reported that its mission had been unsuccessful ; 

on Account of the County House, which is Burnt, he failed & Finally 
was settled as Usual ..." Benj. Gale to W. S. Johnson, June 30, 
1768, Johnson MSS. (loose). 

'" Harvey, II, p. 684. 

^^Ibid., II, 683. According to an Article written by Roger Sherman 
and published in the Connecticut Journal, April 8, 1774, this was in 1770 
instead of 1771. 

"In May, 1770, in consequence of a memorial preferred by more than 
4,000 of the freemen of the colony (none of them interested in the Sus- 
quehannah purchase), praying the assembly to assert and support the 
claim of this colony to the lands contained in our charter, lymg west of 
the Delaware River ..." Boutell, Life of Roger Sherman, p. 73. 

^ E. Thurlow, Attorney Gen. ; Alex. Wedderburn, Solicitor Gen. ; Rich. 
Jackson, agent for colony ; J. Dunning. 



Radicalism in Connecticut, 1754-1775 217 

thereupon the assembly passed the resolutions so desired by the 
Susquehannah Company and incorporated the Wyoming lands, 
including all the Connecticut settlements, into the town of West- 
moreland, thus making the success of the company complete. 

In 1763 the home government, aided by the circumstance 
of the Indian uprising, had stopped the movement of the Con- 
necticut people westward. The agitation of the Susquehannah 
Company had continued, however, and, when those who had 
not been in sympathy with its aims had been removed from the 
Upper House, the company had then been able to push forward 
and take an even more radical stand than it had taken during 
the first period of its activity. Though it seemed as if the 
political triumph of the supporters of the company was at last 
complete, its opponents could still fight on and they took one 
last stand before the meeting of the assembly in its May session 
in 1774. This will be treated in the following chapter. 



218 Smith College Studies in History 

CHAPTER IV 

The Controversy within the Colony 

The incorporation of the Wyoming lands into the town of 
Westmoreland, attached to the county of Litchfield, seemed a 
final and complete victory for the members of the Susquehannah 
Company. The opposition, which had been able to maintain 
a majority in the Lower House for so many years, though now 
a vanquished minority, had still the strength to rally its forces 
throughout the colony and make a determined stand by means 
of an extra-official procedure. An anonymous article, signed 
"Many,"^ appeared in several of the colony newspapers some 
time in the latter part of February, 1774, and was printed on 
the front page of the Connecticut Courant on February 22. 
This was an announcement to the public of the desire, on the 
part of many who wished to "consult measures proper to be 
pursued to evade evils which we apprehend will attend present 
measures," that town meetings be called for the purpose of 
choosing representatives to meet at a convention to be held at 
Middletown on the last Wednesday of the following March. 

Such a convention was without precedent in Connecticut. 
The members of the Susquehannah Company and others who, 
though not members, were in sympathy with its aim, were, 
therefore, astounded at this proposal. They were also fearful 
lest it should prove to be a successful measure, and their long 
fought- for victory be lost through an expression of popular 
disapproval at the coming election that would be held after the 
proposed convention. "Many's" article, moreover, made several 
rather serious accusations. 

These accusations denounced the members of the company 
on the following grounds: first, "by selling rights to some, and 
giving to others, they had so increased their members, that the 
General Assembly could not procure a vote of the House to 
exclude the Members of the Susquehannah from sitting and 
voting in this very case in which they were immediately inter- 



^ "Many," Connecticut Courant, Feb. 22, 1774. 



Radicalism in Connecticut, 1754-1775 219 

ested;" second, having repeatedly said that the Colony should 
be put to no expense on account of the affairs of the company, 
they had, nevertheless, obtained a vote for the government to 
take upon itself the defense of its title to "those lands" and, 
accordingly, had "transmitted the state of tlic case to gentlemen 
learned in the law in Great Britain," for whose answer, of "less 
than twenty-five lines, the cost to the colony had been more 
than £100 sterling;" third, they had so taken up the time of the 
assembly with the business connected with their company that 
the colony had had to bear the expense of an adjourned meeting 
of the assembly, added to the expenses of the commissioners 
sent to negotiate with the governor of Pennsylvania ; fourth, 
it was at the adjourned meeting toward the close of the session, 
when only sixty members were present, that the assembly 
incorporated the lands of the company into the town of West- 
moreland; and lastly, not an assertion but an insinuation, they 
had misappropriated funds of the colony. The author stated, 
moreover, that the assertion of the Susqueltannah Company, 
given in order to allay the fears of the taxpayers as to the cost 
of all this, that the sale of the western lands beyond those 
belonging to the company would bring the colony so much money 
that taxes would no longer be necessary, was an altogether 
false promise. The Company had claimed that if the colony 
would maintain its charter limit as the "South Sea," then 
the lands as far west as the Mississippi River, where the British 
domain now ended, would belong to the colony. It was a 
comparatively small portion of this vast tract that the Susque- 
hannah and Delaware Companies had bought from the Indians. 
The writer of the article, however, maintained that, when the 
assembly ceded to the Susquehannah Company the right to those 
lands, the assembly had also ceded to Samuel Hazard of Phila- 
dephia the lands lying between those of the company and the 
Mississippi. 2 The article closed with the announcement of the 
convention. 



^ The land ceded by the colony to Samuel Hazard had for its eastern 
boundary a line one hundred miles west of the western boundary of Penn- 
sylvania. When he had but set his venture on foot, he died. Alvord, II, 
pp. 92, 93. Up to this time his heirs had done nothing further with his 
claim. 



220 Smith College Studies in History 

As might be expected, this article was followed by a storm 
of protest. The honor of the members of the company demanded 
that such accusations be refuted. Policy made the same 
demand, lest the coming convention have the excuse of the sup- 
posed dishonest action on the part of the officials of the colony 
as a basis for opposition to the official acts of the colony. The 
accusations were specifically refuted in articles in the Connec- 
ticut Conrant, March 8, unsigned ; the Connecticut Gazette^ 
March 11, unsigned; and the Connecticut Journal, April 8. 
signed Roger Sherman.^ They were also answered in a pam- 
phlet by Ezra Stiles, "^ as well as in a series of articles b> 
Benjamin Trumbull. The series appeared in at least two 
newspapers, the Connecticut Courant and the Connecticut 
Gazette, and was afterward reedited and published in pamphlet 
form under the title of A Plea in Vindication of the Connecticut 
Title to the Contested Lands. 

Not only were the accusations answered and the title of the 
colony vindicated, but the convention in turn was attacked as 
unprecedented, unnecessary, and illegal. Insulting and abusive 
articles were written by both sides, in which, however, no 
names were mentioned except that of Jared IngersoU of the 
opposition. Against him the attacks were both many and 
virulent. From February until the election in May, the papers 
were full of the subject. The Connecticut Courant even printed 
supplements. The Connecticut Gazette, more partisan than the 
Courant, was almost equally monopolized by this question, 
although it gave space to only one innocent-appearing article 
by the opposition and held over for two weeks, after announc- 
ing its arrival, a letter that IngersoU sent to several newspapers 
for publication. Doctor Gale, of the opposition, published a 
letter in pamphlet form ; this was answered by a pamphlet 
signed "E.D.," of which Eliphalet Dyer was the reputed^ author. 



^ Quoted in Boutell, Life of Roger Sherman, pp. 73-79. 

* The pamphlet was unsigned, but Harvey, in his History of IVilkcs 
Barre, names Stiles as the author. 

* Hoyt, Brief of a Title in the Seventeen Toivnships in the County of 
Luzerne, bibliography. 



Radicalism in Connecticut, 1754-1775 221 

To this Doctor Gale replied, and in turn this second pamphlet 
by Doctor Gale was answered in a second one by Eliphalet 
Dyer. Dr. William Smith, Provost of the College of Penn- 
sylvania, wrote a pamphlet on the side of the opposition ; he 
was not a citizen of Connecticut, but much of the material that 
he used in his publication was furnished him by Ingersoll, a 
Connecticut citizen then living in Philadelphia. This was 
answered by Benjamin Trumbull's Pica in Vindication of . the 
Connecticut Title to the Contested Lands. 

By March 4 notices of town meetings began to appear in 
the newspapers. The Connecticut Courant of March 22 printed 
a notice signed "Many;" this notice suggested that, in spite of 
the protests made by members of the Susquehannah Company, 
there were many more towns that might have meetings and 
elect representatives to the convention, if there were more time 
in which to do so ; "Many" had, therefore, postponed the 
meeting from the last Wednesday in March to April 1. The 
printer himself, who seems hitherto to have kept out of the 
quarrel, could not refrain from a squib upon the change to 
this particular date, in which he disclosed his suspicion that 
Ingersoll was "Many." 

On the appointed April 1, the delegates, forty-five in number 
and representing twenty-three towns, met in convention at 
Middletown, the meeting being held behind closed doors.*' Since 
the members differed as to the method of procedure upon the 
matter concerning which they had been called together, the 
convention broke up, after which some of the delegates held a 
second meeting, again behind closed doors. This more unified 
group made up slates for the coming election, varying them 
according to a certain plan ; these they sent at once by messen- 
gers to various parts of the colony.' The following were two 
of the slates. 

I Mathew Griswold, Governor 

William Samuel Johnson, Deputy Governor 



''The Alarm, Connecticut Courant, April 5, 1774. 

'"Colonist," Connecticut Courant, May 3, 1774. Reprinted from the 

Connecticut Gasctte. 



222 Smith College Studies in History 

Thomas Fitch 
Ebenezer Silliman, &c, &c. 
II Alathew Griswold, Governor 

James A. Hillhouse, Deputy-Governor 

Thomas Fitch 

Ebenezer Silliman, &c, &c. 

A third slate had Thomas Fitch for governor. The plan was 

this : by offering as candidates for governor and deputy governor, 

besides those officially nominated, the names of several who were 

popular with the other side, this group though that the vote 

might be so divided that no one would be elected. If this 

should occur, the assembly would have to elect the governor. 

In this plan lay a chance for Fitch and his adherents.^ 

On April 5, after this preparation had been made, the contest 

that would take place at the election was announced by the 

following advertisement.^ 

A State Race, to be run for the Royal Plate on which the Arms of 
the Colony is engrav'd, by the young Horse Westmoreland, against the 
old Horse Charter, at Hartford on the second Thursday of May 
next . . . 

The result of the contest left the interests of the Susquehannah 

Company still safe, for the election was carried according to 

the duly authorized list of nominees, and the governor, deputy 

governor, and councilmen were reelected. Benjamin Trumbull 

asserted that they were elected by "by far the greatest number 

of votes ever brought in for any governor or covmcil in this 

colony. "10 The opposition had succeeded only in getting Jabez 

Hamlin elected on the council. 

After the election there was published in the Courant 

another satire on the State Race, and a final advertisement. 

This is to Notify all Persons indebted to me the Suscriber, for the 
Service of my Horse Charter, ... to make speedy Payment, as it 
is expected he will soon be sent for to Old England, to compleat the 
Race with the Westmoreland, and through Infirmity of Body and ill Usage 
it is thought he will never return. 

"Charles Steady."" 



A Creed, Connecticut Gazette, April 8, 1774. 
' Advertisem.ent, Connecticut Courant, April 5, 1774. 
"Trumbull, A Plea in Vindication ... p. 101. 
^Connecticut Courant, May 31, 1774. 



Radicalism in Connecticut, 1754-1775 223 

The figures of the horse and of the arms of the colony used 
in the satire bear a striking resemblance to expressions used in 
two of Doctor Gale's letters.^- These were written considerably 
before the satire appeared. Moreover, in his letters the language 
is in general highly colored by striking and individual figures, 
in decided contrast to the serious tone of the letters of his 
friends. It seems, therefore, probable that the Doctor was the 
author of the opposition satires as well as of the opposition 
pamphlets. 

The satire was, apparently, the last expression of opposition, 
within the colony, to the assertion by Connecticut of a claim 
to the Wyoming lands. Accordingly, Connecticut continued to 
assert and to maintain its claim; the further struggle, however, 
was a matter between the governments of Pennsylvania and 
Connecticut, until after the decree of Trenton, when the con- 
troversy assumed yet another phase. After the election of May 
12, 1774, the thoughts of the people were occupied by questions 
concerning methods of opposing the authority of Great Britain. 

If it is true that the chief reason for the radical position 
taken by Connecticut, in the general opposition to Great Britain, 
was her desire for expansion, expansion being contrary to the 
policy of the home government, then those within the colony 
who opposed that expansion must have been conservatives, or 
sympathizers with Great Britain. It is necessary then to know 
who the opponents of that expansion were. 

While the controversy of the spring of 1774 brought to 
light little that was new in regard to the membership of the 
Susquehannah Company, save perhaps the addition of the names 

" "I think we are in a fine way, & riding Post Haste into the Rhode 
Island Method of Faction — Could the Freedom of our Elections be main- 
tained our Charter Privilidges would be a great blessing, but otherwise, 
Loss of Charter would be Greater . . . when to the Colonies Arms, 
the Arms of the Susquehanna Comx are I trust to be added to yf Escution, 
when you shall return ..." Gale to W. S. Johnson, June 10, 1767, 
Johnson MSS. (loose). 

"This has been Co" Dyers Hobby Horse by which he rose & as he has 
been unmerciful to Gov Fitch & Yourself I never design to Give him 
rest untill I make his Hobby Horse throw him into the Dirt ..." 
Gale to Ingersoll, Dec. 29, 1769, Neiv Haven Hist. Soc. Colls., p. 428. 



224 Smith College Studies in History 

of two active sympathizers, Benjamin Trumbull and Roger 
Sherman, it did make some of the opponents known. Jared 
IngersoU was to be found definitely allied with the opposition. 
His letter in vindication of his position was published in several 
of the papers of the colony. There appears to be, however, 
no obvious reason for assuming that he took the prominent part 
in the controversy that was generally ascribed to him, as shown 
by the acrimonious attacks against him. The pamphlets written 
by Doctor Gale are evidence that he took part in the controversy, 
whatever his relation to the satire on horse-racing elections. 
The names of the delegates from some of the towns to the 
Middletown convention were published in the papers, but that 
circumstance is not sufficient evidence of their belonging to the 
opposition, for some of them objected to the proposed measures 
and left the convention. The slates made up at the convention, 
however, give valuable information. 

According to the explanation of the slates, Mathew Griswold, 
candidate for governor, and William Samuel Johnson and James 
A. Hillhouse, candidates for deputy governor, were put upon 
the slates in order to divide the votes cast for governor and 
deputy governor, for which positions Jonathan Trumbull and 
Mathew Griswold were the official nominees. Thomas Fitch, 
however, was the real candidate for governor of the group that 
made the slates. According to the way the names were given 
on the slates, Thomas Fitch, Ebenezer Silliman, &c., &c., it 
looks as if some definite group were meant. The names that 
had for years been associated politically with that of Thomas 
Fitch were Ebenezer Silliman, Jabez Hamlin, John Chester, and 
Benjamin Hall. These were probably the nominees of the 
opposition group. Moreover, expressions used in the controver- 
sial writings, such as: "with design to serve party purposes, "^^ 
"whose names are thus prostituted to serve a party,"i'* and 
"some people who have been disafifected to the present adminis- 
tration of government for near eight years past ; . . . and 



' Stiles, To a Candid Public, see ch. iv, note 4 above. 
'"Colonist," Connecticut Courant, May 3, 1774. 



Radicalism in Connecticut, 1754-1775 225 

constantly endeavoring by misrepresentations to raise themselves 
to power and trust on the ruin of worthy and honest rulers, "^-^ 
suggest that, in spite of the fact that there were no officially 
recognized party organizations within Connecticut, there were 
strongly marked political divisions. A survey of the later 
history of the colony shows the alignment along various political 
issues. 



^^"Verax," Connecticut Conrant, March 15, 1774. 



226 Smith College Studies in History 

CHAPTER V 

The Relation of the Susquehannah Company to the 

Political Divisions 

The first political issue to bring out a distinct lining up of 
forces in Connecticut was, in its beginning, religious rather than 
political. The reference is to the controversy within the estab- 
lished church. The "great revival," beginning in 1741, had 
meant the deepening of the religious lives of many of the people. 
Evil as well as good, however, had followed in its wake. Just 
as with the Quaker, in the early history of the colony, emotions 
excited by religious fervor led to extravagances of behavior, so 
too, at this time, excited feelings resulted in many excesses. 
Those who were naturally conservative were at first pleased 
with the religious awakening, but later they turned against the 
revival methods and all who used them. Since the church was 
an established one, religious afifairs were also civil affairs. 
Accordingly it was not long before the assembly began to 
legislate against wandering revivalists. In 1742, it passed an 
act forbidding, under penalty, the entrance of one ordained 
minister into the parish of another, for the purpose of preaching, 
unless he came through the invitation of the resident minister 
and his church. The unlicensed preacher was liable to a greater 
penalty and the stranger might be sent as a vagrant from "con- 
stable to constable" out of the colony.^ 

More important than the legislation against preaching was 
the control exercised by the government over the churches. 
The parishes were established by law. When increased number 
of parishioners or extent of territory included within the parish 
gave cause for dividing it, permission for so doing had to be 
obtained from the assembly. Since the revival had changed 
the attitude of some people toward religion, members of the 
same churches could no longer worship together harmoniously. 
Accordingly, those who felt that they had experienced conversion 
wished to withdraw from the others and form a new church of 
their own. 



^ Johnston, pp. 232, 233. 



Radicalism in Connecticut, 1754-1775 227 

Since the adoption of the Saybrook platform, the churches 
were not only under the authority of the assembly but, to a 
degree also, under that of the convocation, that is, the group 
comprising all of the Congregational churches of the county. 
When the dissatisfied groups within the churches desired to 
withdraw, objections were raised for the reason that, on leavmg, 
they would take with them their church taxes. As long as the 
conservative group remained in the majority it was able to 
control the convocation. With the assembly also on its side the 
"Old Light" faction was able to control the situation and keep 
the "New Lights" from leaving the old churches. Some of the 
parishes allowed the division; in others the struggle between 
the Old Lights and the New grew so intense that it became an 
important political issue. This was notably the case in Wallmg- 
ford and New Haven. . 

In the Wallingford church the Old Lights were still m 
control- the New Lights, however, having become the majority 
in the convocation of which the church was a member, now 
considered themselves the orthodox group. In 1758 the church 
had called James Dana to be its pastor; the minority, questiomng 
his orthodoxy, objected to him, and was supported in its objection 
by the convocation. Accordingly, the convocation forbade Doctor 
Dana's ordination; the church defiantly ordained him The 
convocation retaliated by pronouncing the sentence of non- 
communion against the church and Doctor Dana, and acknow- 
ledged the minority group in the church to be the First Church 

at Wallingford.- , , r n 

In the New Haven church the New Lights had finally grown 
to be the majority. They had been acknowledged a church by 
four ministers of the eastern half of the Fairfield County con- 
sociation. Notwithstanding this the assembly had not const.tuted 

hem a separate church, and their church taxes had yet to be 
pa d toward the support of the First Church and ,ts pastor 
Joseph Noyes. During the controversy Jared Ingersoll Colone 

Joseph Whiting, and Dr. John Hubbard had acted on d.fferent 

''^^^„, ThirUcn HisloriccI Discourics, p. 267 ff. 



228 Smith College Studies in History 

committees representing the side of the Old Lights.^ President 
Clap of Yale had been greatly opposed to the New Light party; 
later he began to think that Noyes, though no longer able to 
be very active in church work, objected to receiving a colleague. 
Realizing also that the college was losing favor with the public, 
Clap conceived the plan of asserting the right of the college to 
its own church. In the effort to gain this end he became the 
earnest opponent of Noyes. ^ Chauncey Whittelsey, who was 
finally appointed to assist Noyes, succeeded him as pastor of 
the New Haven First Church. A letter^ from Whittelsey to 
Stiles, who was outside the controversy as pastor of a church 
in Rhode Island, shows how the action in regard to church 
matters taken by the assembly became a somewhat general issue 
throughout the colony and made the names. Old Light and New 
Light, descriptive of strongly marked political divisions : 

You must know that Wallingford Minor Party, and indeed tiie Con- 
sociation — Gentlemen, were not at all pleased with the doings of the 
Assembly and especially the Disposition of the Upper House last May. 
I must also tell you, that the Supi" Court in August last gave Judgment 
in FaV. of Father Noyes, granting him for the last year's Salary and 
Wood, £130.0.0 Lawful Money at which M^. Bird People were not a little 
disgusted. Whereupon New Haven and Wallingford Male Contents have 
united to attempt a mighty Change in Governm, and there are some 
pretty strong Suspicions that the Pres*. [President Clap of Yale] with 
seme of the Consociation Clergy were at ye Bottom of the Scheme. The 
Gentlemen to be dropt out of the Administration were the Gov. and Mess. 
Newton, Silliman, Burr, Chester, Woolcot, Edwards and Hamlin ; — instead 
of which were to be advanced Mess. Walker, Wooster, Ledyer, &c, &c, &c. 
Who was to be for Gov. I think, was not fully agreed, as you know the 
Time for choosing Gov. is not till Spring. To effect the Scheme, Nomina- 
tions were drawn up and Emissaries sent out with them from Dan to Beer- 
sheba, to spread groundless Reports to the Prejudice of the Gov. &c, and to 
stir up the Disaffected. But all to little or no purpose as far as we are yet 
able to judge. We hear from the various Parts of the Colony, that the 
Emissaries had been using their Influence in almost every Place ; but this 
Scheme was rather despised than approved of by the Body and better part 
of the People as far as we have heard. 

The New Lights were not powerful enough to bring about 
the desired change in the council; all of those to whom they 



"Ibid., p. 218 ff. 
* Ibid., p. 232. 

^Chauncey Whittelsey to Stiles, Sept. 25, 1759, Stiles, Extracts, 
p. 581. 



Radicalism in Connecticut, 1754-1775 229 

were opposed, with the exception of Roger Wolcott, Jr., who 
died in October of that year, were reelected. The Hst of six 
whom they failed to put off the council included three, Silliman, 
Chester, and Hamlin, besides the governor, who were dropped 
upon another political issue in 1766. As to the other three: 
Newton was not reelected in 1762 (being seventy-six years of 
age he had, no doubt, resigned); Burr died in 1763; and 
Edwards died in 1765. 

While the New Lights struggled to get control of the council 
an economic issue was emerging in the political field. The 
idea of expansion was becoming an absorbing one, especially in 
the inland districts of the colony. Before long three great 
emigration movements had taken many thousands of people to 
the frontier, away from the colony.^ Not only those who went 
forward to found new homes in the wilderness were included 
in these ventures, but also influential men who remained in the 
colony were interested in them as means of speculation. One 
of these ventures, that of the Susquehannah Company, accord- 
ingly became later an important political issue. Preceding the 
attempted change in the council, in 1759, it had already passed 
through a few years of political history. 

Before the Susquehannah Company made its purchase from 
the Indians in 1754, it sought the support of a favorable opinion 
from the governor of the colony. Roger Wolcott, then at the 
head of the administration, gave it most heartily in the following 
letter :^ 

I am of opinion a New plantation or plantation att the place design 
Will be much for his Majesties Service as it will Inlarge The English 
possessions of the Colony and advance our frontiers into it and being 
Setled with good and orderly people Will Much Strengthen and Incourage 
the English In North America against the Incroachments of the French, 
Who are Continually Errecting Their forts Nearer and Nearer to us 
& thereby driveing the Indians from his Majesties Alliance . . . 

I therefore Wish them good success In That Undertaking and that 
they may never Want Incouragement from The Throne." 



" "It is thought that not less than 30,000 souls have emigrated from 
this colony into other parts in about twelve or fourteen years past." Benj. 
Trumbull, Connecticut Courant, April 26, 1774. 

' R. Wolcott to Sus. Co., January, 1754, // 'olcott Papers, Conn. Hist. 
Soc. Colls., XVI, p. 428. 



230 Smith College Studies in History 

Wolcott may have thought that the settlement of the proposed 
plantation would do much for His Majesty's service. He did 
not, however, state that he thought His Majesty would he of 
the same opinion. When Governor Hamilton of Pennsylvania 
sent to the governor and deputy governor of Connecticut his 
first letter of protest against the proposed settlement of the 
Susquehannah Company on the Wyoming lands, '^ the replies 
sent back showed the characteristic attitudes taken by Wolcott 
and Fitch toward expansion. Wolcott had been a speculator 
in lands within the colony, before they had all been taken up.'' 
Three of his sons were original members of the Susquehannah 
Company, and at least two of them were prominently identified 
with its activity. No advantage from his official position accrued 
to the company, however, for in 1754 he failed of reelection.^*' 

The year 1754, in which Fitch began his administration, 
marked the beginning of an important period of colonial history, 
that of the French and Indian War. Governor Fitch had not 
only the management of the military affairs of the colony during 
this period, a matter which he carried through most ably, but 
there fell to his lot likewise the controversy over the claims 
of the Susquehannah Company. From the time that he wrote 
his first letter to Governor Hamilton upon the matter, which so 
contrasted with the one written by Wolcott, the position he took 
throughout was one of opposition J:o the activity of the com- 
pany. 

After the first burst of enthusiasm and growth that accom- 
panied the formation of the company, there was a lull in its 
activity necessitated by the hostilities of the Indians. Long 
before the Treaty of Paris was signed, however, the Indians 
w^ere again quiet upon the frontier, so that the settlers could 



* See ch. ii, note 25 above. 

'Matthews, p. 92. 

^"His failure to be reelected had nothing to do with his stand in refer- 
ence to the Susquehannah Company. It was because of a claim that he 
had not been sufficiently careful of goods taken from a disabled Spanish 
ship that had put into New London. Some of the goods were stolen and 
the matter for a time loomed somewhat large in diplomatic relations. His 
conduct was later vindicated. 



Radicalism in Connecticut, 1754-1775 231 

return to their deserted homes and even advance farther into 
the wilderness. The return of interest in the Wyoming lands 
occasioned the revival of the correspondence upon the question. 
The reply ^^ sent by Fitch to a second letter of protest by 
Hamilton shows not only his lack of personal interest in the 
matter but his determination that the colony should take no part 
whatever in the affair : 

Whether the Assembly at that time had any apprehension those 
Lands were in the Limits of the Charter of Pennsylvania or not, I am 
not able to say, I suppose very few, if any, among us were acquainted 
with the particular description of the Bounds of that Charter ; But whether 
such purchase and proceedure interfered with any other Claim, the Assembly 
did not undertake to consider, as the motion was that they should by some 
Declaration signify that Connecticut would make no claim under the 
charter to this Colony, in opposition to their motion to the Crown which 
the Assembly readily made; Thus Sir you see that the Assembly has 
been so far from making a Grant of those Lands that they rather disclaim 
them and leave those who have any Challenges by purchase, or former 
Grants, to conduct and manage as they think proper. 

This Government, therefore, as such, have no concern in those atfairs, 
nor have any inclination or disposition to interest itself in any dispute 
about those lands; and, altho' the purchasers may, Most of them live in 
Connecticut, yet, as they act in a private Capacity, and even out of the 
Government, we can do nothing only by advice relative to their Conduct 
under another Jurisdiction. The impropriety, therefore, of this Govern- 
ment undertaking to prohibit people's purchasing Lands in the Limits ot 
^our proprietary's Claim, and in your Government or any other, save our 
own, must be very apparent, as every Government has the sole right to 
command, forbid, etc. in its own Jurisdiction, so has Pennsylvania in the 
present Case, if these things are withm it; Nevertheless, as far as my 
fnfluence wil extend, I shall not fail in using it to prevent the ill conse- 
quences you mention; but if those purchasers should apply to tne King 
You will, doubtless, have a fair opportunity to oppose any motion they 
may make. 

The following year Fitch even went so far as to state, in a 
lener^^ to the Board of Trade and Plantations, that "the Colony 
is bounded on . . . the west by the Province of New York- 
which lines have been settled by agreements between the respec- 
tive governments and royal confirmation." This statement of 
Fitch of the western limit of the territory of the colony, dis- 
claiming as it did any right of Connecticut, under the terms 

^^F^h to Hamilton May 7, 1761, Fitch Papers, II (proof) 

4itch to W of Trad'e and Plantations, Sept. 7, 1762. PubUc Records 
of Col. of Conn., XI, p. 688. 



232 Smith College Studies in History 

of its charter, to the lands as far west as the "South Sea," was 
used as an argument against the claim of Connecticut to the 
Wyoming lands by the opposition in 1774,^-*^ and also by the 
attorneys for Pennsylvania in the court held at Trenton, in 
1782, to decide the case between the two states. Those who 
favored the claim of the colony answered this with the equivocal 
argument that the statement made by Fitch was not in reply 
to a question, "What are your boundaries?" but in reply to 
"What is the situation of the Colony under your govermnentf 
What are the reputed boundaries ?"^^ With the controversy over 
the Wyoming lands fresh in his mind, for in 1761 he had not 
only received the letter of protest from Governor Hamilton 
and carefully investigated the matter before replying, but he had 
also received and answered a letter upon the same subject from 
General Amherst, he could hardly have written without explana- 
tion, "the Colony is bounded on the west by the Province of 
New York," if he had wanted Connecticut to claim the western 
lands. 

President Dwight, a contemporary of Fitch, characterized 
him as "probably the most learned lawyer who had ever been 
an inhabitant of the Colony."!-"' Fitch's letters are throughout 
dignified, straightforward and courteous. It has also been said 
that he was less canny in his answers to the home government 
than were the other colonial governors. In consideration of his 
intelligence and his character and the fact that he himself was 
not a member of the Susquehannah Company, there is no reason 
for believing that he was not honest in writing the following 
letter!*' to Governor Morris of Pennsylvania: 

Your favour of the 20th Instant by M^ Armstrong received Yesterday 
and should be glad it was in my Power to do more service that I am at 
present able to afford to prevent the 111 Consequences you have so well 
pointed out as proceeding from the Purchase of those lands on Susque- 

^'Benj. Trumbull, A Pica, etc., p. 62 ff. 

" Ibid., p. 64. The same argument was used later in the court at 
Trenton. "Mr. Jesse Root began, making use chiefly of Trumbull's Pam- 
phlet as a brief ..." Reed to Gen'l Bryan, Dec. 13, 1782, Hoyt, Brief 
of a Title in the Seventeen Toivnships, p. 42. 

" Bates, Fitch Papers, I, p. xi. 

'"Fitch to Robert Hunter Morris, Nov. 29, 1754, Fitch Papers, I, p. 71. 



Radicalism in Connecticut, 1754-1775 233 

hannah in the Manner in which some People of this Colony have presumed 
to Act. I am very sensible that to take any steps to disaffect the Indians 
in our Alliance or to raise Contests between the Governments at this 
Critical Conjuncture must be prejudicial to his Majestys Interest and 
greatly Detrimental to the safety and Peace of these Governments ; and 
therefore ought to be opposed by all. I preswade my self Sir that you 
believe I shall use what Influence and Interest I can against such Pro- 
ceedings. Indeed I must confess myself to be unacquainted with the 
Scheme proposed by those Persons, and know but very little about the 
Steps they have taken as they never made any application to the Govern- 
ment about the matter and who the Persons concerned be or where they 
live I know not, but only in general I have been informed some live in 
this Government and I suppose the greatest Number, some in England, 
some, in New York the Jerseys and else where, when Gov Wolcott made 
Publick Gov Hamilton's Letter about this affair I imagined it would 
have discouraged the further proceedings in that matter but by what I 
have heard it had not in general that Effect, however I know of no better 
way with us at Present than to represent the State of the Case in some 
Public manner by which all Persons concerned may see the Consequences 
of such a proceedure ; and it will be needless for me to think what may 
be proper to be done in your Government in such Case. I shall therefore 
lay the matter before our Assembly for their Consideration and shall as 
I have opportunity Endeavor as far as lies in my Power to shew the 
Perril attending such transactions: if any thing worthy of Notice Occurs 
shall further advise you. 

His confession of ignorance of the scheme might well be a 
truthful statement. In 1753 a group of comparatively unknown 
people, mostly from northeastern Connecticut, had petitioned the 
assembly for permission to buy land from the Indians and the 
affair had attracted the notice of several members of the council, 
and of representatives from other parts of the colony, as a 
means of speculation. A company had accordingly been organ- 
ized and had bought the lands from the Indians, but this company 
had not yet presented any memorial to the assembly, i' The 



" The following expression of what seems to be the general opinion 
concerning Fitch's attitude in this manner is not borne out by the position 
he took from the beginning of the controversy to his death. "But offi- 
cially the Connecticut government knew absolutely nothing of what nearly 
all its members and thousands of its citizens were embarked in ; and though 
very solicitous to stop it in the general interest, — the home government was 
justly alarmed at the prospect of a civil war between two colonies in the 
midst of a foreign war of life and death to all of them — was quite unable 
for lack of information. The one reference to it in this volume is 
amusingly characteristic, Fitch's letter of Nov. 29, 1754: he does not 
know the parties to it or where they live, entirely reprobates it, and will 
try to have the Assembly (composed largely of its stockholders or the 
relatives or neighbors of the pioneers) intervene against it." Fitch Papers, 
I, p. xxxi, article by Forrest Morgan. 



234 Smith College Studies in History 

fact of his son's having been one of the original members of 
the company does not alter the situation, for a grown son might 
easily, even in that day, have bought membership by the purchase 
of one two-dollar share in a scheme of speculation, without the 
knowledge of his father. ^^ 

It was during the first period of activity of the Susque- 
hannah Company, when the home government showed itself so 
determinedly opposed to schemes of the company, that there 
came a change in the attitude of some of its members. At this 
time Jared Ingersoll was the colony's agent in London. When 
he went over in 1758, one of the prominent members of the 
company, Daniel Edwards, asked him to find out what he could 
as to the opinions of those in the administration and of others 
of importance concerning the wisdom of the actions of the 
company and the probability of its success in its undertaking. 
When in 1761 Ingersoll returned to Connecticut, Richard 
Jackson of London having in the meantime been appointed agent 
of the colony in his stead, he sent a full report of what he had 
learned to the company, which was so little in its favor that 
he felt it his duty to advise the company to abandon its scheme. 
Some of the members suspected him of having been bribed by 
Penn to make such a report,'^ and the consequent result was 
a feeling of bitterness engendered against him by these members. 
Later circumstances combined with this to make the name of 
Ingersoll a byword in certain parts of the colony. Nevertheless, 
in spite of the distrust of some there were others who were 
influenced by his opinion, together with that of General Amherst 
and of Sir William Johnson, and who lost interest in the success 
of the company, or even became opposed to its asserting 
and maintaining its claims. 

One of those who early joined the Susquehannah Company 
and later withdrew his allegiance was Joseph Chew. He had 
taken a somewhat active part in the company, but, convinced of 
either the fraudulency or the inexpediency of the company's 



See ch. ii, note 36 above. 

Ingersoll, Connecticut Courant, March 22, 1774. 



Radicalism in Connecticut, 1754-1775 235 

schemes, he tried, as, quickly as might be, and with as little friction 

as possible, to disassociate himself from its activity and free his 

name from any connection with that of the company. While 

he was feeling thus disinclined toward it, the company, not 

realizing his apostasy, desired him to use his influence in the 

interest of the company, with William Franklin, Governor of 

New Jersey. Chew felt the absurdity of their expecting 

Franklin's support, for, as he wrote to Ingersoll, "Mr. Franklin 

will on no Terms interfer in any matter disagreeable to the 

Ministry — ^this is Reasonable to imagine."-'* Moreover, Chew 

felt that in order to keep his own position he must not act at 

variance with the expressed policy of the home government.-^ 

Franklin was, perhaps, influenced by the same reasoning, having 

"too much good sense and sound judgment to Concern himself 

with a matter of this kind. Provided other Reasons did not 

weigh zvith him."^^ At any rate he told Chew, expressing the 

wish that he repeat the opinion to Dyer, agent of the Susque- 

hannah Company, that there was no hope of Dyer's obtaining 

a charter for the company, and that, unless they knew the 

Indians were satisfied, the ministry would be absolutely opposed 

to the scheme. 

. . . his Errant would be to no Purpose unless the Indians were 
Really willing for the Settlement, and viorc that the ministry would Expect 
to Receive an Acco of their being willing from Sr W™ Johnson, the Person 
they imployed here in matters Relating to Indians — that if we Expected 
a Governt and to obtain a Charter we should be disappointed — that our 
Claiming all the Lands to the West Seas was Idle and Ridiculous — that 
no Person could pretend to think it Consistant wtl^ Common Sense to have 
a Government 60 miles wide & 3000 miles Long — and many things of the 
kind.23 

When representatives of the Iroquois came to Hartford to 

lay their complaint before the assembly during its May session 

'"Chew to Ingersoll, June 8, 1763, Nczv Haven Hist. Soc. Colls., IX, 
p. 281. 

" " . . . tho' I am not immediately appointed by the Crown to the 
small Posts I enjoy I Receive them from Persons who will by no means 
encourage anyone who would be troublesome." Chew to Dyer, June 9, 
1763, Nezu Haven Hist. Soc. Colls., IX, 283. 

"^Chew to Ingersoll, June 17, 1763, Nciv Haven Hist. Soc. Colls., IX, 
p. 282. 

"Chew to Ingersoll, Aug. 10, 1763, Nczv Haven Hist. Soc. Colls., IX. 
p. 286. 



236 Smith College Studies in History 

in 1763, Fitch told them that the government had had nothing 
to do in the matter of buying their land or in sending people 
to settle upon it.^^ Dyer, angered by the Indians' denial of 
having sold the land to the company, and balked in his designs, 
accused Sir William Johnson, who had refused his bribe of 
a share in the profits of the company, of having sent non-repre- 
sentative Indians there in order to frustrate the plans of settle- 
ment. -■'^ His anger no doubt also included Fitch, for his speech 
to the Indians, a final act in his long course of opposition to 
the company. At all events when a fitting opportunity offered, 
the hostility Dyer showed Fitch was indicative of personal 
animus.-^ 

Shortly after the coming of the Indians to Hartford, Dyer 

went to London, as agent for the company, in order to try to 

obtain a charter for the Wyoming lands. Chew, who "had a 

very great Respect for Col° Dyer and would go very great 

Lengths to Serve him,"-" and who felt that only disappointment, 

if not disaster, awaited him if he continued to work in the 

interest of the company, did his best to persuade him to drop 

the whole matter: 

I assure you I begin to Entertain a very Poor opinion of the Success 
of the Susquehannah Company, by what I can gather from Persons of 
the first Carracter the very mention of it is odious to the Crown & Ministry, 
& I believe those who Exert themselves most will not only gain the 
Displeasure of the great on the other side of the water, but of many 
in Power in the Coloneys . . . Since this Speech of the Indians I 
have had an Opportunity of seeing many Gentlemen, no ways Concerned, 
who all say it appears to them the Purchase if Ever made was a very 
unfair one, that if it had been made Ever so fairly & the Indians were 
sick of the Bargain the Crown would be in favour of them, that theres 
not Even a Prospect of its Ever being Granted by the Crown, and in 
short that one word from Sir W™ Johnson, whose duty it is to set the 



" See ch. ii, notes 50, 51 above. 

^ " . . . that the Deputies at Hartford from the Six Nations &c 
are in his opinion no more than Vagabond Mohawks, who S"" W^" Johnson 
hired or sent to deliver that Speech in order to intimadate & Prevent the 
Settlement." Chew to Ingersoll, July 27, 1763, Neiv Haven Hist. Soc. 
Colls., IX, p. 285. 

^' See ch. iv, note 12 above. 

" Chew to Ingersoll, June 27, 1763, Neiv Haven Hist. Soc. Colls., IX, 
p. 282. 



Radicalism in Connecticut, 1754-1775 237 

matter in the most Clear Light, will have more weight with the Kings 
Pri^J Council and Parliament than the oaths of ten thousand such unknown 
W tnesses as we have to the Deed obtained by Lydms [an Indian trader 
^ qtetTonabir repute whom the Susquehannah Company had employed 
in the purchase from the Indians]. ... I most suicerely n.teres 

mvself hi Every thing which Concerns you I wish from my heart you 
wLai y clea/ of the matter . . . Believe me, my Dear S,r these 
Reasons are the Result of the Best advice I could get from those friends 
who I am in a great measure dependent upon, and my own serious Reflec- 
tions.-^ 

But Dyer was not to be turned from his purpose. When he 
reached London, however, Richard Jackson was able to persuade 
him that the time was not propitious for presenting his petition 
While he waited his attention was taken up with a matter of 
great importance to all American colonists. 

The Grenville ministry, formed in 1763, had begun the 
consideration of laying a direct tax upon the colonies. The 
Stamp Act, resulting from the policy adopted, had consequences 
of far reaching importance in the lives of some of the leaders 
in Connecticut. This colony was in agreement with the other 
colonies in its opposition to the passing of a stamp act The 
assembly accordingly appointed a committee to consider the 
matter. Their report, in the form of a pamphlet of which Fitch 
was the reputed author, was sent, together with a "h^^k ^^^ 
earnest Address," to the Parliament of Great Britain.-^ When, 
notwithstanding the agitation throughout the colonies the Stamp 
Act finally became law, the governors received orders to take 
oath that the act should be faithfully observed. Governor Fi ch 
hesitated, for he knew that the colony stood opposed to he 
act Disobedience, however, meant removal from office and a 
fine of £100; so, after waiting until two days before the last 
possible one, he called the council together in order to take 

oath ^^- ■ 1 

The presence of three members of the cotmcil was requtred 

for the administration of the oath. Four, only, rematned xvli.le 

all the others, with Deputy Governor Pitkin, w.thdrew rather 

-T^ESTw to Dyer, June 9, 1763, New Have, His,. Soc. Colls.. IX, p. 283. 
" Bates, Fitch Papers, I, p. xiv. 
■• Ibid., p. xvi. 



238 Smith College Studies in History 

than witness the degradation. "^i EHphalet Dyer, however, was 
not content with mere withdrawal, "I was ye only one," he 
wrote, "who made a public Declaration to Gov"" & Council that 
it was an oath in my opinion Contrary to y*^ oath the Gov"' & 
Councill had before taken to Maintain ye right &c of Ye 
Colony."^- Thus Dyer and Fitch found themselves on opposite 
sides on another political issue. 

The taking of the oath was an act that the majority of the 
freemen in the colony felt they could not forgive. In conse- 
quence the governor failed of reelection the following spring, 
1766,^2 in spite of having published a pamphlet in vindication of 
his action. The councilors who had administered the oath to him 
were united with him in the popular disfavor and also failed 
of reelection. ^^ These four were : Ebenezer Silliman, John 
Chester, Benjamin Hall, and Jabez Hamlin. It was the greatest 
political upheaval the colony had ever experienced. The charac- 
ter of the Lower House also had been changed. The election 
of representatives six months before, on account of "the Con- 
fusions of later times," had resulted in the choice of new 
members for "about half the number in the lower house. "^^ 
The resulting assembly was thus so united in its opposition to 
Great Britain that, without undergoing any further material 
changes, it was able to send to the Congress of September, 1774, 
delegates who had been officially chosen as representatives of 
Connecticut. 

The Stamp Act caused the political death of another promi- 
nent citizen of Connecticut. Jared Ingersoll, former agent of 
the colony, had been appointed to the position of distributor of 
stamps. Like Fitch and the councilmen he had opposed the 
enactment of the tax, having spoken against it in London ; but. 



^^ Samuel Wolcott, Memorial of Henry Wolcott, p. 58. 

^ Bates, Fitch Papers, I, p. xvi. 

'^Johnston, p. 287, makes the error of stating that Governor Fitch died 
in 1766. 

** Bates, Fitch Papers, I, p. xvii. 

^Ingersoll to Thomas Whately, Nov. 2, 1765, Nczv Haven Hist. Soc. 
Colls., IX, p. 351. 



Radicalism in Connfxticut, 1754-1775 239 

when it became law, he stood ready to carry it out."'^' The 
people, however, forced him to resign the position and, not 
satisfied by his quiet submission, continued to show their rancor 
toward him until he was glad to escape to Philadelphia, in 1771, 
to enter upon the position of Judge of the Court of Vice 
Admiralty of the Middle Colonies, to which he had been 
appointed by the home government. 

There were others who, fortunately for themselves, just 
avoided being implicated in the Stamp Act trouble. William 
Samuel Johnson wrote to Ingersoll, "If you propose to have 
a Subaltern in every Town, I shall be at your service for 
Stratford if it be agreeable. "'^'^ Even Nathaniel Wales of 
Windham and Andrew Adams of Litchfield asked for appoint- 
ments. The latter, however, upon reflection withdrew his request. 
They were both, later, among the original members of "the very 
efficient Council of Safety" that advised with Governor Trumbull 
during the Revolution. ^^ They, with many others, were ready 
to follow the popular trend when it was plainly shown. Ingersoll 
and Fitch and his associates, however, remained conservative 
too long ever to regain the popular favor. 

"Old party" was the name by which these conservatives 
came to be designated. There were no parties according to 
the modern meaning of the word ; accordingly, when the term 
was used by either group in designating the other, it was a 
term of opprobrium. The grouping of radicals and conserva- 
tives, according to the attitude taken toward Great Britain, 
continued from this time on until the Revolution, or until the 
few who still remained conservative became designated as Tories. 
The letters of Benjamin Gale, "one of the most striking charac- 
ters of his generation in Connecticut,"''^ furnish an interesting 
commentary on the politics of the time from the standpoint of 



^ In October, 1764, Ingersoll went to England on private business; 
while there he was appointed stamp collector and, accordingly, returned in 
July 1765. 

" W. S. Johnson to Ingersoll, June 3, 1765, A'czv Haven Hist. Soc. 
Colls., IX, p. 324. 

^ Salisbury, Familv Hist, of Griszvolds, etc., p. 55. 

'"Dexter, Nezv Haven Hist. Soc. Colls., IX, p. 32. 



240 Smith College Studies in History 

a conservative. Those of Eliphalet Dyer give the other side, 

that of the victorious radical group, which was still gaining in 

favor and prestige. 

Doctor Gale wrote in 1767 to Ezra Stiles, who still held a 

pastorate in Rhode Island, 

We are so emerg'd in Politics of the Rhode Island kind of Parliamen- 
tering that I fear the peace & happiness of this Govt, jg at an End ... 40 

Radical as Connecticut may have been considered, its own citizens 

thought it most conservative in comparison with Rhode Island. 

In June of the same year Doctor Gale wrote the following to 

William Samuel Johnson, then in London carrying on the Mason 

Case: 

Inclosed I send you a list of the Votes of the Freemen by which you 
will see Coll Dyer has the fewest votes save one now in Council, and 
I am of ye Opinion is in a Good way to have Less — we discovered, in 
Counting small Rolls of Votes, Twisted up together, which Doubtless were 
given in for one vote, which contained Numbers — one such contained 20 
Votes for Govr. Pitkin these things work strong — a Motion was made 
for a New list to regulate the Elections but it Failed — I think we are 
in a fine way, & riding Poste Haste into Rhode Island Method of Faction — 
Could the Freedom of our Elections be maintained our Privileges would be 
a great Blessing, but otherwise. Loss of Charter would be Greater . . . 
With regard to the State of our publick Affairs I doubt w"" we shall 
suddenly have any great Changes, and Indeed when I cooly reflect upon 
it, I had rather get out of it by degrees, than to run into such Unstable 
Measures as in Rhode Island, where no Man of Honour Capacity or 
Worth, would think it worth while to Accept of Any place of truse in 
ye Colony. One Comfort is, our Present Govr is very old & as age is 
Honorable I wish he was, as old again as he now is.-*i 

As the conservatives were dropped out of the council, each 

one was lamented by the Doctor. Again he sent his discouraging 

recital to Johnson : 

. . . our New Ministry here in Connecticut, of which You are an 
Unworthy Member, priding themselves in doing Business well, & for the 
Glory of God. had got so astern in the Business of the Session last May, 
that during the Octob"" Sessions they did not finish the Petitions & 
Memorials of Last May. 

They dismissed the treasurer at his own request, having appar- 
ently made it unpleasant for him, and 



Gale to Stiles, April 17, 1767, Stiles, Extracts ... p. 472. 
Gale to W. S. Johnson, June 10, 1767, Johnson MSS. (loose). 



Radicalism in Connecticut, 1754-1775 241 

appointed Mr. Lawfence, & when they can get rid of the Secretary, 
and one man on the other side of the Atlantic, [W. S. Johnson, himself] 
we shall have a Holy Senate and not one Honest Man Above Stairs.42 

The following letter from Dyer to the same correspondent 

offers a suggestion as to the business that took the extra time 

of the "Holy Senate :" 

. . . as to affairs in General in this Country the Several Colonies 
seem well United in their Measures to Evade every attempt to Enslave 
this Country, & flatter ourselves we shall Succeed therein in our little 
Colony the old party keeps up they seem not quite discouraged they seem 
determined to make some struggle at least every year to regain their 
seats but hitherto in vain you remain firm & the Colony in General seem 
well pleased with your Agency ... -13 

In these letters the references to party divisions show the results 

of the Stamp Act. In the following letter Dyer shows that the 

"old party" and the opposers of the Susquehannah Company 

were identical : 

. . . we have Petitioned our Assembly for a Grant of the Colony's 
right and Title to those lands the upper house Grant the lower house 
come near to a Tye but last may Negativd by a Majority of two then 
continued to October Sessions Tried again & Negativd by the lower 
house by a Majority of Six the principal opposition arise from the old 
party but however the Country in General seem to be more and more 
apprized of the Colony's right to those Western lands & the Assembly 
very unanimously voted and appointed a Comtee viz Gov. Trumbull and 
Mr. Wyllys to apply to you to procure in England at the several offices 
where they may be found Authenticated Copys of the several Grants that 
Concern the Title of this Colony . . . You will doubtless before 
this hear of the Death of Gov. Pitkin he died the beginning of October 
last great Expectation was had with respect to the choice of Gov"" at 
October Assembly the parties Exerted themselves to the Utmost it lay 
between GoV Fitch & Trumbull Gov"" Trumbull Carried it by about 15 
votes which opened for a choice of Deputy Gov Govf Fitch was again 
set up by that party for D GoV & several in opposition to him & as it 
was supposed the Votes against him would be scattered it was agreed 
by that party that whoever on the first Tryal had the most Votes they 
should all Unite in him at the next Tryal which brot in Mr. Griswold for 
Depty Govr.44 

The "old party" that called its adherents together at Middle- 
town to determine some method of procedure to oust the members 
of the Susquehannah Company from their position in the council 

"Gale to Johnson, June 30, 1769, Johnson MSS. (loose). 
''Dyer to Johnson, Aug. 8, 1769, Johnson MSS., IV: No. 7. 
"Dyer to Johnson, Nov. 10, 1769, Johnson MSS., IV: No. 9. 



242 Smith College Studies in History 

was the same group that had lost favor through obedience to 
the decrees of Great Britain in regard to the Stamp Act. It 
was also the same group that, several years earlier, had been 
strong enough to hold its position in spite of the organized 
efiforts of the New Lights against it.*^ Upon the first appear- 
ance of the Susquehannah Company Fitch had taken his stand 
against it. While the company was at the height of its first 
popularity throughout the colony, many from the conservative 
group had joined it. As the disapproval of Great Britain had 
become manifest, however, most of these either left the company 
or ceased all activity in it. Accordingly, when the afifairs of the 
company became matters of political importance, most of the 
former Old Light group rallied to the support of the governor in 
his determined opposition to it. Fitch and his adherents, having 
publicly proclaimed themselves opponents of the Susquehannah 
Company and its claims, had thus added this position upon an 
economic issue to that which they had before taken upon a 
religious one, as a cause of their disfavor with the radical 
element in the colony. When, therefore, a third issue arose, upon 
which they again took a conservative stand, the accumulated 
animosity of the radical group at last gained force sufficient to 
defeat them in the election and drive them from the council. 
The position held by this conservative group, other than in 
its official capacity, is shown in the report made by Armstrong, 
who had been sent to Connecticut by Governor Hamilton to 
carry his letters of remonstrance to Governor Wolcott and Deputy 
Governor Fitch and to learn what he could about the Susque- 
hannah Company. He characterized the group as **the more 
knowing people" who despised "the Scheme as wild and prepos- 



*^ Doctor Gale briefly summarizes this development, from the viewpoint 
of the "old party," as follows : 

"The manuscript I mentioned to you is an historical Ace*, of the several 
Factions wh. have subsisted in this Colony, originating with the N. London 
Society — thence metamorphised into the Faction for paper Emissions on 
Loan, thence into N Light, into y^ Susquehannah & Delaware Factions — 
into Orthodoxy — now into Stamp Duty — the Actors the same each change 
drawing in some New Members." Gale to Ligersoll, Jan. 13, 1765 [error 
for 1766], Neiv Haven Hist. Soc, IX, p. 372. 



Radicalism in Connecticut, 1754-1775 243 

terous."^*^ Even ' Benjamin Trumbull was obliged to admit, 
"I am quite sensible that there are gentlemen of great worth 
and ability, from whose opinion I am obliged to dissent, with 
regard to this popular question."-'' This group, whose members 
considered themselves as belonging to a higher class in society 
with their rank and position assured, had no desire to institute 
a change in the established order of things. Moreover, they 
enjoyed the favor of the home government. Letters'*^ from 
Richard Jackson show what hopes of future consideration they 
could entertain. They received special consideration because of 
what they suffered at the hands of the people on account of the 
loyalty they had shown in the crisis occasioned by the passmg 
of the Stamp Act. Their consistent loyalty to the home govern- 
ment deserved recognition. 

Although only the few conspicuous leaders of the "old party" 
have been considered here, it is possible to show something 
concerning their following. It is evident, at least, that there 
was a distinct geographical division within the colony, for 

*" Report of John Armstrong to Hamilton, Hoyt, p. 12. 
" B. Trumbull, Connecticut Conrant, April 26, 1774. 

**"! have indeed already proposed somewhat beneficial for GoV Fitch, 
& if he shd not accept for you if it shd take place; but I am not at 
liberty to disclose what this is, nor can I tell when it will take place, nor 
whether it will take place at all, nor even whether there will be room 
either for Mr Fitch or yourself; all that I can say now is that it will 
not be, I believe, disagreeable to anybody in America." Jackson to Inger- 
soll Feb 20, 1767, New Haven Hist. Soc. Colls., p. 403. 

"It gives me great Concern to find myself still unable to gratify my 
Inclination to serve the good old gentleman Mr. Fitch ... I forget 
in what manner I spoke of ye office of Justice of J-andaha: that is the 
Name of the new Province (if ever erected) but it would certainly have 
been offered to M"" Fitch I may say I had the promise of it for 
him I have another thing in view for ye GoV there has 

been talk of a Commission of respectable Persons for ye settling judically 
(yet summarily) the Rights of all Persons claiming Lands on both sides 
of the River Connecticut in the Province of New York & New Hampshire 
under the Grants of those Provinces— I have proposed with approbation 
Govr Fitch as a proper person for ye Head of this Commission which 
would be to be executed,-no further than ye Country it respects at 
furthest that only for a part of the year, & perhaps might admit of an 
adiournment to Hartford or Albany, a Multitude of other Business has 
stopped this proposal for ye present, as well as all steps towards settling 
of ye Government of Vandalia." Jackson to W. S. Johnson, April 5, 1774. 
Johnson MSS. (loose). 



244 Smith College Studies in History 

repeated statements were made concerning the "east" and 
"west" sides. Especially was this true after the episode con- 
nected with the Stamp Act. People from the eastern side of 
the colony had formed the mob that forced IngersoU to resign 
his position of stamp distributor. After that his letters to 
England were waylaid and opened and their garbled contents 
published in such a way as to destroy his reputation. His friends 
tried to assist him in discovering who had done this. William 
Samuel Johnson wrote in this connection : 

. . . the People to the Eastward have hence Imagin'd that you must 
have wrote in the manner they represented. They have in truth excellent 
Imaginations in that part of the Country, and it would not be very sur- 
prising to find a story of this kind exaggerated amongst them . . . ^^ 

Years later IngersoU learned who had been most instrumental in 

spreading the false reports about him: 

ColDyer tells me ... it was Pa^rson Trumbull who Communicated 
my Treasonable principles & Conduct to y^ good people of the East. The 
Anonymous Letter was wrote from Norwich but the persons name is 
with held from me.5"^ 

Moreover, it was the Connecticut Gazette, printed in New 

London, an eastern town, that withheld Ingersoll's letter from 

prompt publication, and that, though devoting quantities of space 

to the controversy of the spring of 1774, printed but one short 

article by the opposition. 

When the "old party" was getting ready for the election in 

the year following that in which its members had been put out 

of the council, Doctor Gale was ready with his diagnosis of the 

situation : 

After all our paper War, Squibs, Curses, Rhimes, &c I am not yet 
satisfied Gov. Fitch will be chose, however he has a large Majority on y^ 
West side C [onnecticut] River . . . ^i 

After the election and the second defeat of the "old party" 
Gale wrote that the votes of the "Professors of the Church of 



*'W. S. Johnson to IngersoU, Dec. 16, New Haven Hist. Soc. Colls., 
IX, p. 365. 

" IngersoU to Jona. IngersoU, his son, Oct. 24, 1774, N'czv Haven Hist. 
Soc. Colls., IX, p. 449. 

" Gale to Stiles, April 17, 1767, Stiles, Extracts ... p. 492. 



Radicalism in Connecticut, 1754-1775 245 

England" on the east side of the river were in general in opposi- 
tion to Fitch. -^2 

The division of the colony into east and west sides was 
brought out more strongly in articles published in the newspapers 
during the controversy in 1774. In a satire on the Middletown 
convention the author called the members of the "old party" 
the "Quilipiacks" and those "who inhabit the East" the "Pe- 
quots." 

In Times of Yore, the Pequots obtained a complete Victory over the 
Quilipiacks, which proved the Occasion of spleen and ill Humour in the 
latter, that has continued to this Day.^'-'^ 

hannah Company the members of the "old party," the inhabitants 

of the western part of the colony : 

"Philanthropus Redivivus" saw in the opposers of the Susque- 

Our present freedom from the Stamp act under God, vjsls owing very 
much to their conduct [members of Massachusetts assembly] and the 
vigorous intrepid exertions of the zvise men of the cast in our colony, and 
not to the mean, mercenary conduct of a number of courtiers, that 
appear'd ready and willing to resign all our natural rights and charter 
privileges, under the vain and groundless pretence of saving our charter, 
though truly for the sake of some petty post, money or honor, that comes 
from home. Upon examination you'll find, perhaps, the same men and 
their tools as willing to give away part of our colony, as they were all 
our rights and privileges then.^-t 

A writer who signed himself "an old friend to Connecticut" 

objected to what the Susquehannah people said about the west 

side, but did not take exception to the fact that there was such 

a division : 

The common cant of the friends to Susquehannah is that the people 
on the west side Connecticut river are fools, and madmen ; 'tis strange 
that this people are become fools at once, the import of this is, that the 
company are desirous of judging for the whole, and are unwilling other 
people should have any power of voting or acting for themselves.^5 

Two thirds of the counties of Windham and New London, 
on the east side of the Connecticut River, comprised those lands 
that were held by disputed title. Moreover, it was in Windham 



"Gale to W. S. Johnson, June 10, 1767, Johnson MSS. (loose). 
^*"A Pequot," Connecticut Gazette, April 1, 1774. 
'* Philanthropus Redivivus," Connecticut Courant, April S, 1774. 
"^ Connecticut Courant, April 5, 1774. 



246 Smith College Studies in History 

County that the plan of buying the Wyoming lands from the 
Indians had originated. When the first memorial was presented, 
in 1753, by one hundred subscribers, these were nearly all 
inhabitants of Windham County; Farmington, in Litchfield 
County, was the only one of the five named towns outside of 
that county. When the company had grown in size and 
importance, its meetings were held in Hartford or New Haven 
where the assembly was sitting, if they took place when it was 
in session ; otherwise the meetings were generally held at Wind- 
ham. It appears, therefore, that in the afifair of the Susque- 
hannah Company there was a fairly clean-cut line in the colony 
between those on the east side of the river who favored the 
company and those on the west side who were opposed to it. 
In the revolutionary movement the eastern half of the state 
was in advance of the western f^ this was the logical continua- 
tion of the stand taken by both sides upon every preceding issue. 
The division, however, was maintained much more in the southern 
than in the northern part of the colony. On September 15, 
1774, the delegates from towns in the counties of Hartford, 
New London, Windham and a part of Litchfield joined in 
adopting a non-consumption agreement in order to support any 
non-importation agreement that might be entered upon by the dele- 
gates at the Continental Congress. ^^ When a false report of a 
skirmish at Cambridge was spread throughout the colony, it 
was in those counties that the people armed and made ready to 
march to the assistance of Boston. Ezra Stiles, eager for every 
piece of news concerning the patriots, gave a full report of it 
in his diary on November 17, 1774: 

Col. Putnam's Letter of Saturday XI'i A.M. as soon as it came to 
Norwich was printed off & circulated to the Towns every Way thor' 
Connecticut in Handbills . . . Being issued on Saturday it had the 
Effect of putting the whole Colony of Connecticut into an Alarm & 
Motion on Lords day . . . The Western Covmties of New Haven 
& Fairfield did not arm, except the Revd Todd of E. Guilford and his 
Congregation : as far as I can learn the most of the Towns in the rest 
of the Colony armed and marched or prepared to march ... It was 
estimated to m.e at Colchester &c that on this Occasion there were Twenty 



Bacon, p. 273. 

Connecticut Courant, Sept. 19, 1774. 



Radicalism in Connecticut, 1754-1775 247 

Thousand Ucn in Afins in Connecticut & marching or equipt for march 
toward Boston . . . There are in Connecticut 192 Thousand souls 
White implying near fifty Thousand fencible men. The Counties of N. 
London, Windham, Hartford, Litclifiold raised probably Two Thirds their 
number.^s 

The rank and file of the Susciuehannah Company was drawn 
from the section of Connecticut that was earliest and most 
outspoken in its 'opposition to Great Britain. Moreover, the 
men whose names stand out prominently in the afifairs of the 
company were also leaders in that movement of opposition. 
Eliphalet Dyer, whose persistence doubtless made possible the 
final ratification by the colony of its claim to the western lands, 
was one among the earliest avowed patriots. He was a delegate 
to the Stamp Act Congress of 1765 ; he, together with three other 
Susquehannah members, Nathaniel Wales, William Williams and 
Jedediah Elderkin, belonged to the council of safety; he was 
also, together with Roger Sherman, who had shown his active 
sympathy with the company in the article he wrote during the 
controversy, a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1774. 
Samuel Huntington and Oliver Wolcott were delegates to the 
Congress in 1775 ; Wolcott, Williams and Sherman, as delegates 
in 1776, signed the Declaration of Independence. Elderkin was 
a colonel, Wolcott and Samuel Parsons brigadier generals of 
the Connecticut militia. Jedediah Strong was a commissary of 
suppHes for the Continental army. Ezra Stiles and Benjamin 
Trumbull were leading ministers on the patriotic side. Hezekiali 
Huntington died in 1773 but he had taken a promineiTt part in 
the early revolutionary movements. Jonathan Trumbull, as 
governor of Connecticut, was so staunch a supporter of Wash- 
ington that the general called him "Brother Jonathan." The 
Susquehannah Company contained but one prominent member 
who was actively opposed to the Revolution. This was George 
Wyllys, for many years the secretary of the colony. 

William Samuel Johnson, appointed agent of the company 
while in London and the advocate who did most for Connec- 
ticut at the Court of Trenton, the friend of Gale, Ingersoll. 

=' Stiles, Literary Diary, p. 484. 



248 Smith College Studies in History 

and Fitch, appears as an anomaly. By nature conservative, he 
was a man w^hose personaHty was strong enough to enable him 
to steer the hazardous course between the two extremes and 
still retain the confidence and respect of both parties. He did 
not want the colony to assert its claim to the western lands 
lest such overt opposition to the policy and commands of the 
home government might cause it to forfeit its charter ;5^ he 
therefore voted against it.*^*^ When the war broke out he refused 
an office in the militia and retired to his home, where he lived 
quietly throughout the conflict. 

The group of expansionists called the Susquehannah Com- 
pany was determined upon a westward movement. When 
British officers in America showed their disapproval, the con- 
servative group within the colony reechoed that disapproval. 
When the government forbade a continuation of the matter, 
that group was obedient and successfully thwarted the whole 
afifair, but when the Stamp Act episode occurred, the radical 
group had its opportunity; taking advantage of the popular 
disapproval of the conservatives, the radicals, practically synony- 
mous with the Susquehannah Company, drove the conservatives 
from the council. Freed from their restraining influence in the 
council, the company was finally able to obtain the support of 
the assembly; and to lay official claim to the western lands. 
Just as the radical group was eager to rid itself of the immediate 
restraint of the conservatives within the colony, so too it was 
ready to throw ofif the whole burden of control by the home 
government in order that it might, unhindered, pursue its west- 
ward way. 



' See ch. iii, note 15 above. 

'W. S. Johnson to Rich. Jackson, Nov. 5, 1773, Johnson MSS. (loose). 



Radicalism in Connecticut, 1754-1775 249 

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